Vuelta a San Juan: Mullen wins stage 3 time trial, Ganna takes overall lead

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Irish time trial champion Ryan Mullen (Trek-Segafredo) took out the stage 3 time trial at the Vuelta a San Juan on Tuesday, covering the 14.4km course in 17:43, 25 second faster than runner-up Fillipo Ganna (UAE Team Emirates). Ganna may have missed out on the stage win, but he collected a more important prize, seizing the overall race lead from Roman Villalobos (Canel's Specialized), who dropped out of the top 15.

Bora-Hansgrohe's Rafal Majka finished third on the stage and now sits second overall, five seconds behind Ganna. Oscar Sevilla (Medellin-Inter was fifth and moved into third overall, 11 seconds behind Ganna.

Mullen started 57th out of 163 riders and had to wait nearly two hours to find out if his time would be good enough.

"I was really getting bored there. It was along time," he said in theist-stage press conference. "I just pushed as hard as I could push, and in the last five minutes I was like really dipping down and fading. I just had to really hang on. At the itme I crossed the line I didn’t think it would be enough to win because of how I felt at the end. But it turns out it was, and I’m very happy."

Mullen started the day in 107th pace, nearly three minutes down and so didn't figure into the general classification, but Ganna finished fourth on stage 2 and started the its trial sixth overall in large group of riders 10 seconds down. His performance on Tuesday backed up his performance in the uphill finish the day before.

After the race, he said his team pegged him before the stage as the man to take the race lead.

"We will do the most as possible to defend the leader’s jersey," Ganna said. "This morning we had a talk and the team wanted me to take the leader’s jersey because maybe it was good for me and beautiful and also for them to defend it in the rest of the race. I have to say that for sure we will fight to try to have the leader’s jersey until the finish.

How it unfolded

With temperatures topping 34 degrees, beating the heat was one of the man challenges of the day on the mostly flat 14.4km course in San Juan. Riders started on a divided highway and circled through the provincial capitol and finished near where they started to form a nearly complete loop.

Starting 22nd, UnitedHealthcare’s Daniel Eaton set the early fastest time at 19:53, but he was quickly knocked out of the hot seat by Quick-Step Floors’ Iljo Kiesse with a time of 19:10. Jelle Wallays (Lotto Soudal) wouldn’t let that stand, and he bested his fellow Belgian by 11 seconds at 18:59.

Mullen was the first to crack the 18-minute barrier, setting a new best time of 17:43.

Mullen’s time looked significant as rider after rider failed to get close or even go below 18 minutes. Quick-Step’s Remi Cavagna set a fast pace but fell short at 18:27 and slotted into third behind Wallays.

Greg Daniel (Trek-Segafredo) put in a good ride, but he also wasn’t able to crack the18-minuye mark and slotted into second behind Mullen with 18:13, knocking everyone else down a peg.

But as the favourites started to finish, Daniel dropped down to fourth behind Rafal Majka, who crossed the line in just head of Daniel at 18:13. Filiipo Ganna (UAE Team Emirates) came closest to Mullen at 18:08.

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