Sagan leads Tour de Suisse after stage 3 victory: Daily News Digest
Welcome to your Daily News Digest. Here’s what’s happening today:
Sagan wins stage 3 at the Tour de Suisse, Dumoulin cleared for training after minor surgery, Thomas laments Froome’s absence from the upcoming Tour de France. Those stories and more in today’s Daily News Digest.
Story of the Day: Sagan leads Tour de Suisse after stage 3 win
Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) won stage 3 of the Tour de Suisse, out-kicking Elia Viviani (Deceuninck-Quick-Step) and John Degenkolb (Trek-Segafredo) in convincing fashion and taking over the general classification lead.
The win marks Sagan’s 17th career victory in the Swiss stage race.
Peter Sagan celebrates his stage 3 win at the Tour de Suisse. Photo: VK/PN/Cor Vos © 2019
Featuring a profile that favored the fast finishers, the 162.3-kilometer trek from Flamatt to Murten had the sprinters’ teams committed to keeping things together for the finale. With Deceuninck-Quick-Step and Bora-Hansgrohe sharing much of the work at the front of the pack, the day’s breakaway was reeled in with just under 10 kilometers to go.
Deceuninck and Bora continued to pull at the front into the final few kilometers, with overnight leader Kasper Asgreen even putting in a late turn at the front for the former. As the pack approached the key final corner ahead of a gently cobbled, slightly uphill run to the line, Trek-Segafredo took over. Sagan, however, won the battle for the wheel of Trek’s final lead out man after a bit of shoulder rubbing with Degenkolb.
When the three-time world champion launched his sprint, nobody came close to catching him. Viviani came around Degenkolb for second as Sagan celebrated his win and took over the GC lead.
“When we crossed the finish line for the first time, it was clear to me that in order to have a chance at winning, I had to be in the first positions of the group before the last left turn,” Sagan said. “That’s what we did and I was able to attack in the final stretch to get the victory.”
The Tour de Suisse continues Tuesday with a 164-kilometer stage 4 from Murten to Arlesheim.
Stage 3 results
1 SAGAN Peter (BORA – hansgrohe)
2 VIVIANI Elia (Deceuninck – Quick Step)
3 DEGENKOLB John (Trek – Segafredo)
4 GARCÍA CORTINA Iván (Bahrain Merida)
5 SWIFT Ben (Team INEOS)
6 MATTHEWS Michael (Team Sunweb)
7 JANSE VAN RENSBURG Reinardt (Team Dimension Data)
8 LIENHARD Fabian (Switzerland)
9 BOUDAT Thomas (Team Total Direct Energie)
10 HOELGAARD Daniel (Groupama – FDJ)
GC
1 SAGAN Peter (BORA – hansgrohe)
2 ASGREEN Kasper (Deceuninck – Quick Step)
3 DENNIS Rohan (Bahrain Merida)
4 MATTHEWS Michael (Team Sunweb)
5 CRADDOCK Lawson (EF Education First)
6 KÜNG Stefan (Groupama – FDJ)
7 TRENTIN Matteo (Mitchelton-Scott)
8 THOMAS Geraint (Team INEOS)
9 CASTROVIEJO Jonathan (Team INEOS)
10 SÁNCHEZ Luis León (Astana Pro Team)
Moving Pictures
Think you’re a good bike handler? How do you compare to Emil Johansson? The slopestyle star dazzled fans en route to a second-place finish at Crankworx Innsbruck this weekend, and it’s worth a watch.
Race Radio
Dumoulin cleared for altitude training after minor surgery to remove gravel from knee
Tom Dumoulin has undergone successful surgery to remove a piece of gravel from his knee, his Sunweb team has said.
“Tom underwent minor surgery yesterday, in which they removed what initially looked like a metal splinter, but was ultimately a tiny shard of gravel,” Sunweb physician Camiel Aldershof said via a team statement. “We decided to remove the piece because it was causing a slight inflammatory reaction.”
Dumoulin pulled out of the recent Critérium du Dauphiné, citing lingering knee pain, but he is hoping the situation will improve as the Tour de France with a successful operation in the books. He has been cleared to head to an altitude training camp to make his final preparations ahead of the French Grand Tour.
Thomas: ‘We’re going into the Tour without one of the greatest riders ever’
Geraint Thomas talked Tour de France and Chris Froome’s absence from the Ineos lineup in his latest column for GQ.
Geraint Thomas in yellow at the 2018 Tour de France. Photo: ©kramon
“We’re going into the Tour without one of the greatest riders ever,” Thomas said. “Tactically, we had a strong hand to play in the finale of the biggest stages so it’s a setback, but we’re still strong as a team.”
Froome is facing a lengthy recovery from injuries he suffered in a crash last week and will therefore not be in the hunt for a fifth career Tour title, but Thomas said that he and up-and-comer Egan Bernal will be “very much still in contention.”
The reigning Tour champ described Froome’s crash as a “big shock,” but also pointed out that “by the sound of things, it could have been worse. We’re all lucky it wasn’t.”
Thomas went on to list a few of the riders he sees as big rivals for the upcoming race, naming Adam Yates (Mitchelton-Scott), Movistar’s Nairo Quintana and Alejandro Valverde, Richie Porte (Trek-Segafredo), Jakob Fuglsang (Astana), and Dumoulin as threats to Ineos’s yellow jersey aspirations.
Trek and Voxwomen partner to provide Giro Rosa broadcast
Trek and Voxwomen are linking up to provide broadcast coverage for the upcoming Giro Rosa.
Hourlong episodes with coverage of each of the race’s 10 stages will feature previews, highlights, and post-race content, airing online after the finish of that day’s Tour de France stage.
Voxwomen will produce and manage the coverage, which will be accessible globally (except in Italy) on both the Trek and Voxwomen websites.
Coyle wins stage 4 of the Tour de Filipinas
Australia’s Jesse Coyle (Nero Bianchi) won stage 4 of the Tour de Filipinas to score his first career UCI-level victory.
Off the front with Adlan Mohd Shukri (Sapura), Coyle out-sprinted his fellow escapee to take the win at the end of the 176-kilometer stage in Legazpi.
Happy birthday to …
Adri van der Poel is 60. The versatile Dutchman won two Tour de France stages and two Monument Classics (the 1986 Tour of Flanders and 1988 Liège-Bastogne-Liège) in his career, and also claimed a cyclocross world title in 1996.
Adri van der Poel riding Paris-Roubaix in 1994. Photo: Cor Vos © 2017
What’s more, he has the distinction of being the father of another versatile Dutchman: Mathieu van der Poel.
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Feature Image: Peter Sagan wins stage 3 of the Tour de Suisse. Photo: VK/PN/Cor Vos © 2019
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