Tour de San Luis: Koning wins stage 3 in La Punta

Peter Koning scored a huge victory for the Drapac Pro Continental team, winning stage 3 of the Tour de San Luis in La Punta in spectacular style. The 25-year-old neo pro made the day long breakaway, and then left his three companions behind to solo to victory with ample time to celebrate his achievement.

Overnight race leader Fernando Gaviria (Etixx-Quickstep) led the chasing group home, out-sprinting a surprisingly quick Travis McCabe (Holowesko Citadel) and world champion Peter Sagan (Tinkoff).

1:36 down in the general classification at the start of the stage, Koning put just enough time into the chasers to take over the race lead from Gaviria - he finished 1:37 ahead - but thanks to the time bonus he leads Gaviria by six seconds, with teammate Maximiliano Richeze in third at 22 seconds.

Koning's adventures began early on in the 131km stage from El Potrero de los Funes, when he escaped with Elìas Tello (Chile), Gonzalo Najar (SEP San Juan) and Emmanuel Guevara (San Luis Team).

Over the course of the first two hours the four riders build up a massive six-minute advantage, while Cesar Rojas (Costa Rica) tried desperately to close the gap but could not manage to join the leaders.

With a category 2 climb looming on the horizon with 11km to go, Koning chose the slight decline before the gradual ascent to launch his move, immediately putting the others into difficulty.

Tinkoff, Astana, Movistar and Etixx-Quickstep worked to close the gap, but the peloton disintegrated on the Mirador del Potrero, leaving small groups to chase back together on the rapid descent toward the finish.

Present in the group, the world champion Sagan and race leader Gaviria, who inspired the others to continue to try to split up the group. Astana's Miguel Lopez and Andre Cardoso (Cannondale) tried to crack the group, but the pace was far too high.

Not high enough, however, to claw back Koning. The Drapac rider scored his team's first win of the season in style.

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