Vingegaard crushes summit finale on stage 3 of CRO Race

CRO Race 2022 - 7th edition - 3rd stage - Sinj - Primosten 157 km - 29/09/2022 - Jonas Vingegaard (DEN - Team Jumbo - Visma) - photo Tommaso Pelagalli/SprintCyclingAgency©2022
Jonas Vingegaards climbs to stage 3 win at 2022 CRO Race (Image credit: Tommaso Pelagalli/SprintCyclingAgency)

Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) sprinted to victory on the abrupt, uphill finish of stage 3 at the CRO Race.

He held off Oscar Onley (Team DSM) for his first victory since the Tour de France.

Matej Mohoric (Bahrain Victorious) rolled across the steep pitch in Promešten in third, while his teammate Jonathan Milan was fifth and held on to the GC lead.

"It was a very difficult finish, it was a very bumpy road. It was hard to stand on the pedals, so you pretty much had to be seated. The legs were good today, so we worked for it all day and I'm pretty happy," Vingegaard said at the finish. "It's nice to win in the last part of the season."

Onley took over as the KOM leader with a two-point advantage over Tobiasz Pawlak (HRE Mazowsze Serce Polski). Along with the leader's red jersey, Milan continued to hold the points and best young rider classifications.

The 157km stage began inland in Sinj, the heart of Dalmatia, and then rolled south to the Adriatic Sea for a turn north to hug the coastline to the finish in Primošten, the "pearl of the Adriatic". With 17km to go, a full circuit was punctuated by the second-category climb, followed by the cat 3 uphill finish in Promešten.

The lead group included Manuele Tarozzi (Bardiani-CSF-Faizanè), Viktor Potočki (Ljubljana Gusto Santic), Vedad Karič (Meridiana Kamen Team), Tilen Finkšt (Adria Mobil), Mathias Reutimann (Team Vorarlberg), Mark Christian (EOLO-Kometa) and Pawlak in the green mountains jersey. 

They absorbed the third intermediate sprint point of the day at Šibenik, with 35km to ride and holding a 1:43 gap. Pawlak took the top points at the first intermediate sprint in Split, followed by Karič's take through Primošten and then Reutimman at Šibenik.

Gentle inclines over the next 25km led to the base of the first ascent of the KOM, where Pawlak and Potočki had aspirations, but the peloton gained impetus to make the catch for the finishing circuit.

The break began to fracture with just under 20km to go, Potočki and Pawlak having difficulty staying in touch and Tarozzi the last man standing as the impending catch by the peloton was made.

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Jackie Tyson
North American Production editor

Jackie has been involved in professional sports for more than 30 years in news reporting, sports marketing and public relations. She founded Peloton Sports in 1998, a sports marketing and public relations agency, which managed projects for Tour de Georgia, Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah and USA Cycling. She also founded Bike Alpharetta Inc, a Georgia non-profit to promote safe cycling. She is proud to have worked in professional baseball for six years - from selling advertising to pulling the tarp for several minor league teams. She has climbed l'Alpe d'Huez three times (not fast). Her favorite road and gravel rides are around horse farms in north Georgia (USA) and around lavender fields in Provence (France), and some mtb rides in Park City, Utah (USA).

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