Tour Down Under Stage 3 Win For Viviani

18 January 2018 05:16
Quick Step’s Elia Viviani took the win on stage three of the 20th Santos Tour Down Under. 

Caleb Ewan of Mitchelton Scott was in the Ochre jersey with a ten second lead over his team mate Darryl Impey for the start of the third stage which was reduced by 26kms to 120.5kms due to the temperatures in the Adelaide area which were expected to be around forty-one degrees on a stage from Glenelg to Victor Harbour, which was hosting a finish for the 13th time. 

The stage started with no Steve Moribito who injured his shoulder on stage two, leaving 129 riders to contest the race.

KOM leader Nicholas Dlamini of Dimension Data and Scott Bowden of UniSA were again in the break for the third stage in a row were 3.05 ahead after seven kilometres and 4.25 six kilometres later.

Into McLaren Vale and the lead was at 5.30 as the duo out front headed for the category one climb at Penny Hill, a 3.1km climb with average gradients of 7% which was the steepest of this race.

Two kilometres from the summit and a minute had been knocked off the leader’s margin as Mitchelton Scott worked hard on the front of the peloton.

Nicholas Dlamini took the Terry Roberts Memorial Trophy and the sixteen points to keep him in the Subaru KOM jersey for another day ahead of Bowden who moved up to second in the KOM competition.

As the peloton came over the top of the climb, Dlamini led Bowden by twenty seconds and 4.35 ahead of the peloton with 77kms to go and BMC’s Richie Porte taking the final point on offer.

Dlamini took the first sprint at Myponga with Irishman Sam Bennett taking two points and as their lead slowly evaporated, Dlamini dropped back to the peloton after 75kms on the front.

Bowden took the second sprint at Inman Valley after 88kms ahead of Nathan Haas and Jay McCarthy and opted to carry on until he was caught with 19.5kms to go.

Tiago Machado of Katusha took a thirteen second lead but he was caught with eight kilometres to go and the sprint trains took over.

Mitchelton Scott lost their grip with 300 metres to go and Elia Viviani of Quick Step went down the left to take the win in 3.04.40 ahead of Phil Bauhaus, Caleb Ewan, Simone Consonni and Peter Sagan.

Caleb Ewan continues to lead the race by ten seconds.

KEV MONKS FOR DIGITAL SPORTS GROUP 

 


 

 
 
 
  

Source: DSG