Peter Sagan wins stage 3 in Eneco Tour
Sep 21 2016 10:50 pm CET
SUBSCRIBE TO RSS FEEDSPeter Sagan of Tinkoff has won the third stage in the Eneco Tour after a thrilling finale in which a lead group was caught at the very last moment.
The lead group of five with Mark McNally (Wanty-Groupe Gobert), Jesper Asselman (Roompot-Oranje Peloton), Stijn Steels (Topsport Vlaanderen - Baloise), Martin Elmiger (IAM Cycling) and Yukiya Arashiro (Lampre-Merida) went into the last ten kilometers with about a minute of advantage over the peloton.
Collaboration in the bunch was hard to set up for the sprint teams and it momentarily looked like the five escapees were going to make it to the finish line as the gap wasn't going down fast enough for the peloton to catch up on time.
But the pace in the front group slowed in the last kilometers as the leaders began to look at each other rather than their chasers, and it was enough for the sprinters to catch up with less than 100 meters to go until the finish in Ardooie, Belgium.
Although McNally (fifth) and Elmiger (seventh) still managed a top-ten spot, the top four went to some of the usual suspects with Sagan crossing the line ahead of Danny van Poppel of Sky, Nacer Bouhanni of Cofidis and former race leader Dylan Groenewegen of LottoNL-Jumbo.
Rohan Dennis, the winner of the Stage 2 time trial, remains in the overall lead. Sagan moves into second place at the expense of Jos van Emden who moves down to third.
The Dutch-Belgian race continues with a 201km stage from Aalter to St-Pieters-Leeuw on Thursday.
#EnecoTour @petosagan (@tinkoff_team) wins the third stage of the @EnecoTour pic.twitter.com/TKw8QuEhL1
— CyclingPub (@CyclingPub) September 21, 2016
