Tour de Pologne: Bonifazio wins stage 3

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Niccolo Bonifazio (Trek-Segafredo) won the third stage at the Tour de Pologne in a sprint finish in Nowy Sacz. The Italian beat Moreno Hofland (LottoNL-Jumbo) and Luka Mezgec (Orica-BikeExchange).  

"I am so happy because since the beginning of the year I was searching for a victory. I dedicate this win to my teammates, they have helped me for three stages and today I was finally able to pay them back with the victory," Bonifazio said.

Fernando Gaviria (Etixx-QuickStep), who finished 14th in the stage, maintained his lead in the overall classification. He heads into Friday's stage 4 with a six-second advantage over Bonifazio and eight seconds over Caleb Ewan (Orica-BikeExchange).

Stage 3 was a 240km race from Zawiercie to Nowy Sacz, the longest stage of the seven-day tour. Although a five-man breakaway cleared the field, they were ultimately brought back into the mice before the day's final succession of climbs.

The field split several times over each hill, but regrouped before the final run-in to Nowy-Sacz. In the last metres, Bonifazio jumped around Fernando Gaviria (Etixx-QuickStep) to take the win by a bike length ahead of Hofland and Mezgec.

"I suffered on the steep climb 25 kilometres from the finish," Bonifazio said. "But I followed the Etixx (Quick Step) train to get back to the bunch with Gaviria. I recovered and then in the sprint I decided to follow Gaviria's wheel. I felt good, and I was able to pass him easily with 200 metres to go. I was confident I could do well in one of the sprints this week, and today everything went perfectly.

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