Tour de Suisse: Matthews wins stage 3

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Sunweb's Michael Matthews claimed stage 3 of the Tour de Suisse on Monday, out-sprinting Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) and John Degenkolb (Trek-Segafredo) in Bern.

After a hectic uphill run-in to the line, Sunweb hit the front for the finishing straight to put Matthews into prime position for the final kick. The 26-year-old Australian launched with 150 metres to go and none of those behind came particularly close to pulling even with him, despite a bit of argy-bargy in his wake.

"I struggled a little bit on the climb. I wasn't climbing so well today but it was good enough," Matthews said. "I saw that I had a teammate there with Nikias Arndt and that gave me massive motivation because I knew he could do a really big pull and that made it perfect for me to do my sprint at the right time, not like last year when I got boxed in during the Tour. It’s nice to get the win that I really wanted last year."

Having finished fourth in the opening prologue and adding bonus seconds with his stage 3 win, Matthews now leads the Tour de Suisse by 10 seconds over teammate Tom Dumoulin. After taking bonus seconds in both intermediate sprints, overnight leader Stefan Küng (BMC) was distanced in the run-in to the finish, and came across the line in a group 19 seconds down, slipping to 12th overall.

"It will be nice having the leader's jersey tomorrow. The team won the Giro d'Italia so I guess they know how to ride on the front now," Matthews said.

After a slow start to the afternoon that saw the pack allow two breakaway riders - Elmar Reinders (Roompot - Nederlandse Loterij) and Lasse Norman Hansen (Aqua Blue Sport) - to get a nine-minute advantage, the tempo rose steadily in the latter half of the stage, setting up a frantic finale after the escapees were reeled in with 13 kilometres to go.

BMC and Trek-Segafredo set up at the front of the pack and drove a torrid pace through several tricky corners to lead into a final uncategorised ascent that began near the flamme rouge and ran up toward the finishing straight. Once the peloton hit the climb, however, any organisation at the head of affairs fell to pieces.

None of the marquee fast finishers wanted to lead into the sprint, with Sagan and Degenkolb swinging off and allowing others to pull the pack into the finale, but Arndt linked up with Matthews on the finishing straight and then hit the front at full speed. He didn't let up until his sprinter was in perfect position to strike, and Matthews delivered to take the win and wrest the yellow jersey from overnight leader Stefan Küng.

How it unfolded

The day's main breakaway formed almost immediately after the peloton rolled off the start line in Menziken for a long lap around the town before heading south and west to Bern. Elmar Reinders (Roompot - Nederlandse Loterij) and mountains classification leader Lasse Norman Hansen (Aqua Blue Sport) jumped clear of the pack within the first few minutes of racing and the bunch decided to allow the escapees to grow their advantage.

The duo were four minutes up the road 11 kilometres into the 159.3km stage. By the time they crested the first of the day's three categorised climbs – with Hansen leading the way – the gap was all the way up to seven minutes.

The gap yawned all the way to nine minutes before the peloton finally showed enough interest to tighten the leash. The pack brought things down to a more manageable six minutes, and the gap hovered there for a while, with Hansen again adding to his mountains points on the next climb of the day.

Trek-Segafredo pitched in to help BMC at the front inside the final 70 kilometres, and the combined efforts began gradually wearing away at the break's advantage. Defending champion Miguel Ángel López (Astana) crashed with around 60 kilometres to go but appeared unhurt.

With 40 kilometres to go, the gap was at 4:35, and it still stood at 3:50 with 30 left, opening the door for the breakaway to feel some optimism about their chances. The danger was not lost on the pack, however, with Trek-Segafredo upping the pace and Bahrain-Merida lending a hand as well. A lined-out peloton then started to rapidly cut into the gap.

Made aware of the growing threat behind, Hansen increased his own tempo at the head of the race. That spelled the end of Reinders' time out front. Unable to keep the peace, the Dutchman drifted back and was swallowed up by the hard-charging peloton in short order.

Hansen's gap was down to a minute with around 15 kilometres left to race. He made it up and over the final categorised climb to take maximum points again, but that's all he would be able to take away from the stage, as the pack closed him down just two kilometres later.

Trek and BMC traded off turns at the front, stringing the peloton out as they pulled into Bern. The organisation fell to pieces on the uncategorised uphill drag toward to finishing straight as several riders from different teams swarmed the front but none seemed interested in committing to an attack.

As the road flattened out, however, Arndt found his sprinter and went to work, providing a textbook lead-out that Matthews turned into his second WorldTour victory of 2017.

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