Tour de Wallonie: Sam Bennett wins stage 3

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Sam Bennett (Deceuninck-QuickStep) claimed victory in a dramatic finale to stage 3 of the Tour de Wallonie, getting the better of Arnaud Démare (Groupama-FDJ) and John Degenkolb (Lotto Soudal) in a sprint, seconds after a late escape group was caught.

Bennett’s teammate Zdenek Stybar was one of four riders who went clear on the steep Cote de Cheratte with 10km to go, along with Greg Van Avermaet (CCC Team) Jonathan Narvaez (Team Ineos), and Loic Vliegen (Circus Wanty).

They had a lead of 20 seconds on the flat run-in but the remnants of a fractured peloton reformed and Groupama-FDJ and Lotto Soudal combined to reel them in. The catch was made inside the final 500 metres and Florian Senechal led out the sprint with such force that he created a four-man split, leaving Bennett, Démare, and Degenkolb to contest it.

The Irishman, who was dropped on a late climb on Monday’s stage, came past convincingly to take his fourth win of the season.

While that trio managed to survive the late climb, Caleb Ewan (Lotto Soudal) was dropped and lost the overall lead of the race, with the yellow jersey now passing to Démare.

“After yesterday I needed that. The springs came out yesterday and I just had nothing. Today was a big difference,” Bennett said.

“We just said we’d ride aggressively, and I’d just float around, because I knew my form must be there some place but I didn’t know if it’d come back today, so I just rode my own race until the last climb, and the boys did a great job in the finale today. With the positioning and the lead-out, the whole team rode a fantastic race and I’m really proud to finish off the job today.”

How it unfolded

After successive bunch sprints on the opening two days, the 192km stage Plombières to Visé was expected to be a more selective affair, with the undulating parcours and seven categorised climbs to start to shape the general classification. The Cote de Cheratte, 700 metres long at 12.5 per cent, featured twice in the final 40km, the second ascent topping out with 10km to go and offering a launchpad to the punchier Classics specialists.

The stage started with a five-rider breakaway going clear, featuring: Michael Golas (Ineos), Marcel Sieberg (Bahrain McLaren), Carlos Canal Blanco (Burgos-BH), Michael Van Staeyen (Tarteletto-Isorex), Andreas Goeman (Telenet Baloise Lions). They built a lead of five minutes as AG2R La Mondiale set tempo in the bunch.

Before any real action occurred, the race lost three riders in Ryan Gibbons (NTT) and the Ineos duo of Owain Doull and Chris Lawless, all of whom had crashed on Monday.

Golas claimed the mountains points on the three climbs in the first half of the stage, but the break split up on the Cote de Mont-Theux with 75km to go. At that point the break’s lead had been slashed, and while Sieberg, Goeman and Van Staeyen were dropped, Milan Menten (Sport Vlaanderen Baloise) and Toon Aerts (Telenet Baloise Lions) bridged across. 15Km later, they were joined by two more opportunists in Pim Ligthart (Total Direct Energie) and Gianni Marchand (Tarteletto-Isorex), but with 40km to go it was all over as the advancing peloton reeled them back.

Groupama-FDJ took control as they hit the finishing circuit and safely took Démare over the first ascent of the Cote de Cheratte. CCC then worked to make it hard for the sprinters but most were still there as a reduced bunch crossed the finish line for the first time with 28km to go. Marco Haller (Bahrain McLaren) and Alexis Renard (Israel Sstart-Up Nation) tried an attack on the approach to the final climb of the Cote de Cheratte but the pace in the bunch was too high.

Senechal launched the first softening attack on the double-digit gradients, before Narvaez took it up and drew out Van Avermaet and Stybar, who thought he’d gained bonus seconds at the intermediate sprint on Monday, only to be docked 20 seconds for riding on the pavement. Vliegen gave chase and linked up with them over the top to form a four-man group for the 10km run-in.

At first, there were only 10 riders in the second group, and with 20 seconds in hand, the quartet looked set to stay away, but there was a regrouping behind, with Groupama-FDJ and Lotto Soudal both possessing the numbers to chase it down. It was a nail-biter, as the gap dropped to 15 seconds with 2.5km to go and seven seconds with 1,000 metres to go. Vliegen then attacked before swinging over, and that allowed the peloton to come roaring up. By that point, Senechal, who had let FDJ and Lotto do all the chasing on the run-in, was pretty much in full flow, and split the bunch in the frantic lead-out, with Bennett duly mopping up to answer his own doubts.