O Gran Camiño: Derek Gee wins, takes race lead in stage 3 time trial

Derek Gee (Israel-Premier Tech) rocketed through the stage 3 individual time trial of O Gran Camiño on Friday, cruising into the race lead as the yellow jersey holder, Magnus Cort (Uno-X Mobility) cracked on the long climb that featured in the first half of the course.

Cort could only manage fourth place on the day, losing 25 seconds to the Canadian. Davide Piganzoli (Polti-VisitMalta) was second on the stage and Maxime Decomble (Groupama-FDJ) was third.

Gee now leads Cort by five seconds in the general classification, with Piganzoli third overall at 17 seconds.

"I'm really happy," Gee said. "I put a lot of expectations on myself going into this - we did some work on the TT bike over the winter, and then I wanted to start the year strong in the TT. So I'm happy to win it. 

"It was a hard one. This TT actually holds a special place in my heart, because in 2022 my result in the O Gran Camino TT is what helped me get my first pro contract. It was another really hard TT at this race, but I was happy to be out there."

When asked whether he thinks he can hold the yellow jersey until the end on Sunday, Gee said he expected the coming stages to be "chaos".

"Uno-X showed yesterday how strong they are. Magnus put in a great TT today again. And then there's a couple guys here who are really, really good climbers. It'll be interesting. Hopefully we can, we can keepsome control."

Stage 3 of O Gran Camiño was a challenging 15.6km individual time trial from Ourense to Pereiro de Aguiar with a 5km climb in the first half of the route. Israel-Premier Tech's Pau Martí and Simon Clarke set two of the fastest early times, but were surpassed by Rafael Reis (Anicolor-Tien21) with a time of 24:20

Soudal-Quickstep's development team rider Federico Savino put in a strong effort to move into the hot seat. However, Hugo Houle put Israel-Premier Tech back on top, going 14 seconds quicker than Savino at 24:02.

Then, Urko Berrade (Kern Pharma) made up for some of the time he lost on stage 1 with a late puncture, going nine seconds faster than Houle to move into the hot seat. His time there did not last long, as Txomin Juaristi (Euskaltel-Euskadi), who crashed in the bunch sprint on the first stage, powered through with a time two seconds faster.

But Berrade didn't even have time to head to the podium as Maxime Decomble (Groupama-FDJ) was right behind, setting a time 12 seconds quicker – 23:39. Piganzoli then came through with a four-second advantage to take the lead as Magnus Cort began his effort.

As the bigger names rolled down the ramp onto the course, it became clear that Piganzoli's time would not hold. Gee rolled through the intermediate check with the fastest time and was still the fastest at the finish, 17 seconds better than the Italian.

Cort struggled on the climb, at one point appearing to have a problem, but he did not stop for a spare bike. He was bleeding time all along the course and lost more than enough time to put Gee into the yellow jersey.

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