As it happened: Tour de Suisse stage 3 sees two-up breakaway hold off the sprinters' teams in dramatic fashion
All the action on the 157km stage in Bad Ragaz
Tour de Suisse - Everything you need to know
Analysing the contenders for the men's Tour de Suisse
Tadej Pogačar 'shaken' after partner Urska Žigart injured in Tour de Suisse crash
Subscribe to Cyclingnews for unlimited access to our Tour de Suisse coverage. Don't miss any of the breaking news, race analysis, and expert insight as the riders make their final preparations for Le Tour. Plus, access the Cyclingnews app to follow the action on the go!
Results
Jhonatan Narváez beats Xandro Meurisse to win stage 3 as pair narrowly hold off the chasing peloton
Hello!
Hello there and welcome along as the Tour de Suisse continues with a stage that represents the only chance for the sprinters in this race, but far from a nailed-on opportunity. The hills we have in the first half of this parcours could prove selective and we may end up with a breakaway day on our hands, depending on how many teams are really interested in controlling for a sprint. It should be an interesting one, and we will of course have every pedal stroke covered right here.
The riders have all signed on for the stage and they're about to roll out. The start proper is coming up in just over five minutes' time.
We don't have a huge number of pure sprinters in this race. Matthew Brennan (Visma-Lease a Bike) stands out, while the likes of Corbin Strong (NSN), Orluis Aulaur (Movistar), Luke Lampert (EF), and Marius Mayrhofer (Tudor) are here. Alpecin-Deceuninck are an interesting one - they were meant to have Jasper Philipsen before he changed his mind about coming, but the team do have Kaden Groves and a certain Mathieu van der Poel.
Start delayed
The riders are still on the start line and we're hearing the roll-out has been pushed back to 2pm local time, so in just over 10 minutes. No reason has been given as yet.
What happened yesterday?
Well, Tadej Pogačar went on the rampage again, although he didn't end up winning. He actually looked like he was trying to set up teammate Jhonatan Narváez on the late steep climbs but ended up going for it himself. However, the breakaway was by that point too far ahead and while Pogačar and Mathias Vacek almost made contact in the home straight, it was Romain Gregoire (FDJ) who kicked clear from the break to land a big win.
And we're off
After the short delay, the riders have rolled out and they've just reached kilometre-zero, where the flag has dropped to wave racing underway. Here comes the fight for the breakaway...
The stage starts out with a climb that's uncategorised but still difficult, and it's seeing plenty of riders dropped already. Nothing sticking off the front just yet, although Bauke Mollema has just had a pop.
Groves looks to be one of those riders off the back - not the best sign with a couple of bigger climbs to come before long.
Breakaway attempt
Seven riders have gone clear: Axel Laurance (Netcompany-Ineos), Sam Oomen (Lidl-Trek), Sander De Pestel (Decathlon CMA CGM), Lorenzo Germani (Groupama FDJ United), Louis Vervaeke (Soudal-QuickStep), Simon Dalby (Uno-X Mobility), Marco Brenner (Tudor Pro Cycling).
Their gap is only slim at the moment and the pace is still high.
This could well be our break of the day. The peloton, which had split, has now reformed and the gap has gone out to 40 seconds after 15km of racing.
After 25km, the breakaway has established itself with a lead of 90 seconds.
Here's a first shot of our breakaway
And here we can see it being formed...
That's Dalby driving it away with Laurance to his right and Brenner to his left. You can glimpse Germani behind centrally, while De Pestel had to come from a way back to join - that's him in green and blue over on the right of your screen.
First climb of the day
The riders are onto the day's first difficulty. It's named the Wildhaus and it measures 9.4km at an average gradient of 6.6%. It's a solid climb and has been granted category-1 status here.
Action on the climb
It's kicking off again on Wildhaus. The gap to the breakaway has come down to below a minute and we have riders attacking from the peloton now. We could see a whole new breakaway form here...
Four riders have managed to make the jump to the breakaway: Jhonatan Narvaez (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), Enric Mas (Movistar), Paul Double (Jayco-AlUla), Jan Hirt (NSN).
But more are coming now....
The breakaway swells to 16 riders but more and more riders look to jump across and that's bringing things back together towards the top of this first climb.
Vervaeke led the race over the top of the WIldhaus climb, ahead of Double and Vlasov.
We're now hurtling downhill, where the peloton is fragmented. This stage is far from settled.
The road has flattened out between the two climbs, and there are two big bunches so the peloton is effectively split in two but the situation is still fluid.
New attacks
Michal Kwiatkowski (Netcompany-Ineos), Jhonatan Narváez (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Xandro Meurisse (Pinarello Q36.5) are on the move. More are chasing.
We're heading towards the next of the day's climbs, where we're only going to see more attacks.
Kwiatkowski has been dropped by Narvaez and Meurisse have opened a gap of nearly two minutes on the peloton. There are eight chasers in between as we hit the ramps that take us up onto the day's second climb.
100km to go
The riders are about to start the second of the day's two climbs, the Schwägalp. It's short at 4km (though we have already been climbing in advance of the official start) and it has a tough average gradient of 8.4%.
Meurisse and Narvaez are well clear now and it looks like the peloton has completely backed off.
Top of climb
Meurisse leads Narvaez over the top of the Schwägalp with a lead of nearly two minutes over the eight-man chase group and nearly four minutes over the peloton.
The eight riders in the chase group are: Alexandr Vlasov (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), Michal Kiwatkowski (Netcompany-Ineos), Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious), Ewen Costiou (Groupama-FDJ United), Emiel Verstrynge (Alpecin-Premier Tech), Max Schachmann (Soudal-QuickStep), Simon Dalby (Uno-X Mobility), Marco Brenner (Tudor Pro Cycling).
The riders are now taking on a fast downhill and it's complicated by a sudden deluge of rain.
80km to go
The gap between Narvaez/Meurisse and the peloton has risen to 4:30. The eight chasers are losing ground at nearly three minutes behind the leading duo.
How will this play out?
An interesting situation here. 4 minutes is a handy gap for our two leaders, but there are just two of them. There's a group in between but it's much closer to the peloton, and chances are it will be reabsorbed before too long. That would make for one pretty much full peloton versus two riders for a flat 55km to finish the stage. We'll have to see who invests in setting the pace needed to bring it back, but at this point a bunch sprint looks the likelier outcome.
70km to go
A little re-cap of the situation...
- Narvaez and Meurisse lead the way
- There's an 8-man chase group at 3 minutes
- The peloton is at 4 minutes
We're on an uphill drag but we'll soon be dropping down that final descent that makes way for our flat final 55km.
All ambition and optimism looks to be draining from the chase group. They haven't completely backed off but plenty of conversations are happening and as they slip further behind the two leaders (3:05 now), they're close to being caught by the peloton, which is closing 40 seconds behind them.
Narvaez and Meurisse are taking on that last downhill now and once again it's Narvaez who's the more comfortable descender, taking the corners far more fluidly, while Meurisse keeps having to sprint out of the bends.
The peloton is taking this descent a little more gently than the leaders. The gap had come down to 3:30 but it's nudging back out again now. Still, it looks like enough teams are invested in chasing this down for a sprint.
Here's a shot of our breakaway duo
The skies have gone gloomy, there are storms breaking over the hills in the near distance, so we could be in for some rough weather in the finale of this stage.
50km to go
Into the final 50 and it's flat from here on in.
The chase group is on the cusp of being caught by the peloton, which is 3:50 behind our two leaders.
Chase group caught
That leaves us with one big peloton chasing a two-man breakaway with 48km remaining.
3:40 is the gap and if there's decent investment from the sprint teams then that's very much bring-backable.
There's the rain. The roads are soaked already.
Who's working?
Visma have been investing in this case for Matthew Brennan. EF have also been active, with Lamperti and Van den Bergh in their ranks, as have Michael Matthews' Jayco-AlUla.
Movistar aren't working right now but that's because they're trying to get Orluis Aular back in – not sure what happened but a few of them a chasing back on.
UAE are also prominent with the yellow jersey Tadej Pogačar not far from the front. They're just trying to stay safe in this rain and might possibly be tempted to try and lightly disrupt this chase given they have Narvaez out front.
40km to go
3:10 is the gap as we head into the final 40.
Only 40 seconds has come off the gap in the past 10km. You do the maths, but they'll have to pick it up if they're going to make this catch.
Torrential rain now. You can see the raindrops bouncing back up off the tarmac.
The gap ducks under the 3-minute mark with 35km to go.
The rain has stopped (though the roads are still wet) and that seems to allow for the pace to pick up, with Jayco, Visma, and EF riding hard.
Jayco and Movistar back involved again, and Lidl-Trek are now working. This looks like enough firepower on paper but the gap is not coming down very quickly...
30km to go
2:40 is the gap as we head into the final 30.
The peloton only found 30 seconds in the past 10km. There's still plenty of time and they can do this, but at this rate, they won't.
We've got the same finales in the men's and women's races here at the Tour de Suisse. Earlier today, we saw a bunch sprint in Bad Ragaz and the big question is whether we get another one.
Tour de Suisse Women: Zoe Bäckstedt stuns the field with scorching long-range sprint to win stage 3
The gap comes down below the two-minute mark and it has finally started to tumble...
20km to go
Into the final 20 and how's that gap looking?
1:40 – so the peloton have taken back a minute in the past 10km.
That's much more like it, but they've got no real margin for error now.
This is going to be close
The bunch have started to take time back at the required rate, but have they left themselves with too much to do? If they keep on as they are, they'll manage it, but you can see how hard they're having to try here. Riders are almost sprinting as they do their pulls. This is a mammoth effort and the question will be whether enough teams have enough men to burn through. If there are enough troops to maintain this pace, we should have a sprint, but equally the bunch might just run out of legs.
Seven riders are currently sharing the work in front of UAE at the head of the peloton – two from Visma, two from NSN, and one apiece from EF, NSN, Jayco, and Lidl-Trek.
Those teams do have more riders further back in the bunch. They'll all want to save their lead-out rider, as well as one or two others for the final 5km.
14km to go
We're into the Tissot kilometre, which carries bonus seconds but it's a bit of an irrelevance here.
Narvaez takes maximum points at both the intermediate sprints to take six bonus seconds but the leading duo are just thinking about staying away, and the peloton are just thinking about chasing them.
1:10 is the gap with 12km to go!
It's raining again and Movistar post a rider to the front so that's another set of legs, but the gap, which had started to tumble, has slowed once more in his rate of depletion.
Narvaez and Meurisse continue to trade turns flawlessly. However this shakes out, what a ride from those two. It might end in heartbreak but imagine if they can pull it off...
8km to go
50 seconds is the gap. 10 seconds has been chopped off in 2km. More is needed from the peloton.
Pinarello send a man towards the front of the peloton. New helper? Not a chance – Meurisse is up the road and they're trying to get in the way and disrupt this chase.
The chase is falling apart here. They're aren't enough men in line here to keep this pace high in consistent fashion.
4km to go
35 seconds now.
This is in Narvaez and Meurisse's hands now. They can't afford to hesitate though.
Pogacar finds himself on the front! He's obviously not going to chase... it looks like game over for the sprinters.
NSN pick it up again. 2.5km to go and 30 seconds is the gap.
Television footage goes down!
The race communications systems have gone down, so we're in the dark in the final kilometre!
Jhonatan Narváez (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) wins stage 3 of the Tour de Suisse
We've unfortunately no idea how that final kilometre played out but Narvaez has taken it! He's outsprinted Meurisse just ahead of the galloping peloton. What a win!
We do have TV replays from the home straight and we see Narvaez putting Meurisse on the front as the pace slowed in the final 500 metres, before opening the sprint with just under 200 metres to go. Meurisse had no response really and Narvaez stormed clear.
Behind, the peloton was right there. They were given the same time, with Magnus Cort (Uno-X) leading it home just several bike lengths behind Meurisse.
Finish line shot
Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), after two days of attacking, enjoys a rare quiet day in the peloton, retaining his yellow jersey and big overall lead ahead of the two key GC days that will finish this race at the weekend – Saturday's time trial and Sunday's big mountain stage.
That's Narvaez's fourth win of the season after his triple stage win at the Giro d'Italia last month. He's been brilliant for UAE since joining in 2025 - not long after he beat Pogačar in a two-up sprint on the opening day of the 2024 Giro.
Meurisse speaks
"You always have to believe. It's cycling. If you don't believe in it it's better you go back to the bunch immediately. We didn't talk to each other - we just went full to the finish line. Not one of us skipped one turn. So we understood each other really well. I need to be disappointed but I also need to be happy."
And finally we can hear from our winner
"It was a hard day, especially in the last part where we had a headwind. But we rode full. I'm happy," says Narváez.
"We did a mistake yesterday and [Tadej] said 'today two riders from the team are free', so I tried to go in the breakaway and I just ride full with the other guy. I'm happy to get the chance today."
Until tomorrow
That's it from us for today. Thanks for your company as always. Join us again tomorrow for full live coverage of stage 4 of both the men's and women's Tour de Suisse.
