Pays de la Loire Tour: Coquard regains GC lead with stage 3 victory

Bryan Coquard (Cofidis) outkicked Marijn van den Berg (EF Education-EasyPost) at the line and won stage 3 of Pays de la Loire Tour. Alexander Kamp (Tudor Pro Cycling) took third from a small bunch sprint.

With the Frenchman’s second victory in the four-day stage race, he moved back into the GC lead.

The longest day of the four-day stage race at 197km, there was no hurry for riders to make moves early on and it was not until 48km was covered that two riders made separation at the front, Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) and Benjamin Thomas  (Cofidis). Halfway through the stage the lead duo was joined by four others - Cyrus Monk (Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team), Valentin Tabellion (Go Sport - Roubaix Lille Métropole), Léo Danès (CIC U Nantes Atlantique) and Unai Cuadrado (Euskaltel - Euskadi).

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The sextet built a lead of 3:10 after 100km but saw that margin slip to just under two minutes as they began the three finishing circuits, each lap in Mayenne 14.9km.

The third and final intermediate sprint point was on the first pass of the Mayenne circuit, but Healy did not wait for that marker and accelerated 5km before from the lead group. He was followed by Cyrus and Thomas.

With 14km to go on the final lap, Thomas and Healy continued at the front, having dropped all earlier companions, and Uno-X Pro Cycling was among the teams charging to within 35 seconds behind the duo. Thomas was the first to be caught with just under 7km to go, and then Healy was reeled back with 2.5km remaining and the attacks from the peloton went full blast.

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