Breschel wins stage 3 in Tour of Denmark

Matti Breschel (Tinkoff-Saxo) won the queen stage 3 at the Tour of Denmark in Vejle on Thursday. The Dane sprinted from a nine-rider breakaway, winning the race by one second ahead of his fellow countrymen Rasmus Guldhammer (Cult Energy Pro Cycling) and Alexander Kamp (Team Coloquick).

“It was a really tough finale but I’m very happy. This is why we ride - to get wins like this. It’s been a long time since my last win so it’s amazing when it all plays out,” Breschel said in a team press release.

Lars Ytting Bak (Lotto Soudal), who was also in the move, finished fourth on the stage and moved into the overall race lead. He leads the general classification heading into stage 4’s 115km race from Slagelse to Frederiksværk, with only three seconds on Marco Marcato (Wanty-Groupe Gobert) and 12 seconds ahead of Christopher Juul Jensen (Tinkoff-Saxo). Breschel now sits in fourth place 33 seconds back.

Friday is a double day with the stage 5 13.6km time trial held in the evening.

“I had to control my effort but our attack had created a good group and we had distanced the group behind us,” Breschel added. “I have been aiming for this stage to take the win and Chris Juul as our GC rider knew when I would attack and for him it was about staying with me, when I attacked. Unfortunately, Lars Bak also made it in the group but Chris is now third in the GC trailing by just 12 seconds. He’s strong in time trials, so it’ll be exciting to see how the overall looks after tomorrow’s evening time trial."

How it unfolded

Stage 3 at the Tour of Denmark offered an 185km race that started and finished in Veije. It included four KOMs, two intermediate sprints and three 5.7-kilometre-long finish circuits.

The challenging queen stage was made more difficult because the longest stage of the tour was held the previous day into Aarhus. Stage 1 winner Lars Boom (Astana) started the day in the leader’s jersey, however, he only had a lead of nine seconds ahead of Bak.

The day’s six-rider breakaway included Jimmy Engoulvent (Europcar), Janse van Rensburg (MTN-Qhubeka), Mike Terpstra (Team Roompot), Patrick Clausen (Team Trefor-Blue Water), Martin Gron (Denmark) and Christopher Williams (Team Novo Nordisk). They gained a maximum of six minutes but that was reduced to four at the 115km mark, and eventually they were reeled back in by main field, led by Astana and Tinkoff-Saxo with 30km to go.

Clausen picked up full points in the first three KOMs and has moved into the overall lead in the mountain classification.

Van Rensburg and Jay McCarty (Tinkoff-Saxo) counter attacked but they only managed to gain about 25 seconds on the field and were pulled back in 10km later. Van Rensburg earned the day’s most aggressive rider award for his efforts in the two breakaways.

The winning breakaway formed with nine riders late in the race with Breschel and his teammate Christopher Juul Jensen, Guldhammer and Kamp, along with Lars Bak (Lotto Soudal), Marco Marcato (Wanty-Groupe Gobert), Gerald Ciolek (MTN-Qhubeka), Patrick Konrad (Bora-Argon 18) and Troels Vinther (Cult Energy).

The group worked well together and gained around a minute on the field, however, a game of cat-and-mouse with eight kilometres to go resulted in a loss of 15 seconds.

The leading nine riders were all together during the final kilometre and Breschel timed his winning sprint to perfection, while Bak took over the yellow leader’s jersey.

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