Tour de Suisse: Mathieu van der Poel wins stage 3

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Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Fenix) won his second stage of the Tour de Suisse in as many days when he delivered a dominant sprint in the uphill finale at Pfaffnau on stage 3. The Dutch champion beat Christophe Laporte (Cofidis) into second place with Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-QuickStep) taking third after a breathless finale.

The time bonus for stage victory sees Van der Poel take the yellow jersey of race leader, one second ahead of Alaphilippe. Previous leader Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ) managed to stay in the front group on the run-in, but he drops to third, 4 seconds behind Van der Poel.

“I had a good day again and I wanted to make the race hard. Like yesterday on the final climb but it was still around 30-40 guys,” said Van der Poel. “I saw the sprint the first time around the finish and I saw that it suited me quite well so I went for that.”

Ivan Garcia Cortina (Movistar) led into the final kilometre after making a determined solo attack with 9km remaining, but he was finally pegged back thanks to a long, long turn from Van der Poel’s teammate Xandro Meurisse. Mauri Vansevenant proceeded to lead out the sprint for Alaphilippe, but the world champion had no response to Van der Poel’s rasping acceleration inside the final 250 metres.

Van der Poel immediately opened a winning gap, and he had time to sit up and savour his win ahead of Laporte and Alaphilippe, with Michael Matthews (Team BikeExchange) holding off Max Schachmann (Bora-Hansgrohe) for third.

Van der Poel and Alaphilippe had previously been on the offensive over the final classified climb of Rütsch with 25km remaining, forming a dangerous group with  Ineos Grenadiers duo Richard Carapaz and Eddie Dunbar, Omar Fraile (Astana) and Michael Woods (Israel Start-Up Nation).

Although that move was pegged back by a reduced peloton, the tension remained inside the the final 20km, with Alaphilippe briefly attempting to press on alone. More attacking followed, with the most sustained effort coming from Garcia Cortina. The Spaniard’s determined solo attack saw him build up a lead of 17 seconds in the run-in, but he was brought back beneath the flamme rouge.

There was a sense of inevitability about proceedings from there, with Van der Poel careering away to take his sixth WorldTour victory of 2021, as he continues his build-up to his Tour de France debut. He might have another chance to add to that tally on stage 4 to Gstaad.

“I’ll defend the lead for as long as possible, maybe, but it will be difficult,” Van der Poel said. “Maybe tomorrow is an opportunity still but in the mountains it’s too hard for me. Tomorrow is kind of similar to these last two days but for sure they won’t make it easy. Today wasn’t easy. We had to do a really big effort with the whole team and again it was impressive again from them. Tomorrow, maybe it’s possible. Someone has to win so maybe it’s me.”

How it unfolded

The road climbed almost immediately after the race left the start in Lachen, and a trio of attackers quickly threw themselves onto the offensive, with Rémy Rochas (Cofidis), Claudio Imhof (Switzerland) and Ben King (Rally Cycling) slipping clear in the opening kilometres.

They were joined soon afterwards by lone chaser Mathias Frank (AG2R Citroën), who had particular motivation to make it into the day’s break on stage 3 given that the road to Pfaffnau passed his parents’ house. The Swiss rider announced last month that he would retire at the end of the season, hence his determination to make an impression in his final tour of duty on home roads.

The escapees combined smoothly and they built up a maximum lead of 7 minutes over the peloton with 100km remaining, by which point Trek-Segafredo stepped in to cut the buffer down to more manageable dimensions.

Alpecin-Fenix and Team BikeExchange joined the pursuit shortly afterwards, and their combined efforts meant that Rochas, Imhof, King and Frank had just under 4 minutes in hand come the top of the third category ascent with 54km remaining.

From there, the pace began to ratchet up in the peloton and the increased intensity also contributed to a pair of crashes that briefly split the field, with Neilson Powless (EF Education-Nippo), Nathan van Hooydonck (Jumbo-Visma), Kobe Goossens (Lotto Soudal) and Johan Jacobs (Movistar) among those involved in the incidents.

Bora-Hansgrohe took over on the approach to the category 3 climb to Rütsch, where the break’s lead, already down to 1:30, began to crumble completely. The group of escapees broke up once the gradient stiffened with Rochas pressing on alone, but the focus was on the action back in the main peloton, where Van der Poel disseminated panic with a searing attack.

Alaphilippe, Ineos duo Dunbar and Carapaz, Fraile and Woods were among the few to follow Van der Poel’s acceleration, while Bora-Hansgrohe continued to set the tempo in a much-reduced peloton.

Rochas led over the top of the climb but over the other side, the Alaphilippe-Van der Poel group closed to within touching distance. Alaphilippe’s own acceleration saw him catch and then pass Rochas, and the world champion enjoyed a brief solo rally off the front of the race as it entered the final 20km.

Behind, the Van der Poel group had been pegged back by the peloton and Alaphilippe soon accepted that his lone effort was none worth the outlay, but the nervous tone to the stage had by now been well established. 

Mattia Cattaneo (Deceuninck-QuickStep), Woods and Dunbar clipped away to pick up the time bonuses with 10km to go, while Garcia Cortina made his smart effort shortly afterwards. But in the final reckoning, nobody could match Van der Poel.