Tour du Limousin: Philipsen wins stage 3

Jasper Philipsen gave UAE Team Emirates their second consecutive stage victory at the Tour du Limousin, dominating the uphill sprint finish in Chamberet.

Young British rider Jake Stewart (Groupama-FDJ) again impressed, finishing second, with Benjamin Declercq (Arkea-Samsic) third. Italy's Luca Wakermann (Vini Zabù-KTM) finished 11th and so took back the overall race lead from Joel Suter.

The Cofidis team animated the rolling finale of the 177.9km stage and also led out the sprint, but Philipsen had the experience and speed of new Portuguese national champion Rui Costa to help him and they combined perfectly in the final kilometre. When Piet Allegaert (Cofidis) started the sprint early, Philipsen jumped from Costa's wheel to the that of the Belgian, waited for the finish line to draw near, and then kicked away to victory.

“It was a really hard stage, the one with the most metres of altitude of the four days, so it was going to be hard to be there in the final,” Philipsen said.

“I'm happy my condition is growing and I'm happy to finish it off today. I haven't had a lot of victories with the team in the last two years, just a lot of placings in the top ten, top five and podiums. But I also race at a high level, so it was really hard. I'm just really happy to get a chance to win. It was super hard to finish it off.”

Despite his form, Philipsen has not been selected for the Tour de France, with UAE Team Emirates focusing on the overall classification with Tadej Pogacar, while Alexander Kristoff will be the team's selected sprinter. Fernando Gaviria is due to ride the Giro d'Italia.

"I'm due to focus some of the Classics in October and then normally the Vuelta. I hope to be in good condition there,” Philipsen said.

Thursday’s stage was animated by a break composed of Delio Fernandez Cruz (Nippo Delko One Provence), Martin Alexander Salmon (Team Sunweb), Anthony Delaplace (Team Arkéa-Samsic), Danny van Poppel (Circus-Wanty Gobert) and Ibon Ruiz Sedano (Equipo Kern Pharma). They established a maximum lead of more than 5 minutes before they were gradually reeled in as the terrain grew heavier in the latter part of the stage.

In a breathless finale, Alex Domont (AG2R La Mondiale), Nathan Haas (Cofidis), Wackermann and Connor Swift (Arkea-Samsic) were among the attackers, and the repeated accelerations quickly whittled the front group down in size, with the yellow jersey Suter among those to lost contact in the closing kilometres.

The Tour du Limousin ends on Friday with a 167km rolling stage from Lac de Saint-Pardoux to the regional capital of Limoges.

In the overall standings, Wackermann leads Jake Stewart by 5 seconds, with Kevin Ledanois a further two seconds back in third.