Grace Brown takes stage 3 of the Women's Tour Down Under

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Mitchelton-Scott's Grace Brown won stage 3 of the 2019 Santos Women's Tour Down Under in Stirling, in the Adelaide Hills, on Saturday, getting the better of Trek-Segafredo's Ruth Winder and Rachel Neylan (UniSA-Australia) on the uphill drag to the finish.

The race had been briefly neutralised with 10km to go after the riders were directed the wrong way, but Mitchelton-Scott were soon at the head of affairs once the race recommenced, delivering Brown to the stage win, while her teammate Amanda Spratt finished fifth to retain the overall race lead.

The peloton left Nairne for the 104.5-kilometre stage with wind and high speed a feature of the entire day. The fast pace meant attack after attack was unable to gain more than a handful of seconds with Tetiana Riabchenko's (Doltcini-Van Eyck Sport) breaking away just after the 60-kilometre mark.

"I am really happy actually. Coming in to my pre-season I wasn't feeling super great but I think I have come into some really good form lately and I have really enjoyed this Tour doing lots of work for the team and it is awesome they rewarded me with letting me have a go on today's stage," said Brown, the Australian national time trial champion.

"I actually attacked a bit earlier than I was expecting. The plan was to go from 400m and I went from about 600 metres, which is a long way. When I saw I had a bit of a gap and people were struggling to get on my wheel I just hit it again and rode all the way to the finish line.

"I definitely wasn't saving myself during the stage," Brown added of being a familiar presence on the front of the bunch throughout the day. "The team needed me to do work throughout the stage, so I think that was the priority protecting Spratty's lead and if we could win the stage as well that was an added bonus."

The tough Stirling finishing circuit is a frequent feature of the men's Tour Down Under, although 2019 was the first time it has featured in the women's race, creating a new dynamic to the race and an unknown for the riders.

The high speed in the bunch limited the attacking during the stage with the bunch together for the first hour and a half as Chloe Hosking (Ale Cipollini) took the first intermediate sprint ahead of Alison Jackson (Team Tibco-Silicon Valley Bank) and Sarah Roy (Mitchelton Scott).

Riabchenko's attack ahead of the mountains points saw her grab the top points with Nadia Quagliotto (Ale Cipollini) second across the line to solidify her lead of the Subaru Queen of the Mountain Classification. Alison Jackson (Team Tibco-Silicon Valley Bank) grabbed the second sprint ahead of Roy and Spratt, to narrow the lead in the classification with Roy now holding a slender lead of two points over Jackson, creating an interesting battle between the two for the final stage.

As the peloton flew through the finish line to start the local lap around Stirling a fast pace set by eventual winner Brown saw the peloton strung out with riders fighting to remain in contact. The race was briefly neutralised in the final 10 kilometres as riders were directed the wrong way, though Mitchelton-Scott returned to the front upon the restart with Roy setting a fast pace for the final five kilometres to deliver Brown to victory.

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