Sauser and Kulhavy double up on stage 3 of Cape Epic

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Christoph Sauser and Jaroslav Kulhavy claimed their second stage win in as many days after edging out Nino Schurter and Matthias Stirnemann on stage 3 of the Cape Epic. 

Manuel Fumic and Henrique Avancini finished fourth on the day, more than a minute behind Sauser and Kulhavy but retained their lead in the overall standings. 

"That was a good day for us," said Sauser after the stage. "We managed to make good progress and win the stage. It was only a short day so we weren't expecting to eat too much time into the Cannondale Factory Racing XC guys, but we did so we'll take the win and that little bonus. Our plan was always to put in some extra effort up the last climb of the day in the hope that we could split the bunch, and that seemed to work.

"The Cannondale guys were chasing hard, but we could tell that they were on the rivet. We were then able to go down nice and conservatively; there are some horrible, sharp rocks there and the last thing we wanted was a flat or a crash."

In the women's competition, Sabine Spitz and Robyn De Groot had the bettering of Ester Suss and Jennie Stenerhag, however the later sill holds a lead of over eight minutes on the Spitz and De Groot in the GC.

Cadel Evans and George Hincapie claimed the stage win in the masters competition, and clawed back a considerable amount of time in the overall standings, although still lie in third. Tomi Misser and Ibon Zugasti still lead the way in the masters classification but saw their lead trimmed down after finishing third on stage three. 

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