Frenchman David Gaudu timed his move to perfection to snatch stage victory from Mads Pedersen in an uphill sprint on the third stage of the Vuelta a España.
Pedersen’s Lidl-Trek had done a lot of work throughout the day to control the race and set up their leader for victory on a stage that favoured him.
He confirmed as much when he spoke to TNT Sports. Asked if he was surprised to win he said: “Yeah, because I was thinking on the bus this morning it was more for Pedersen but [team DS] Frédéric Guesdon said this morning I had punch and I could win today.
The team did a very very very good job on the position so thank you to them. I’m very happy very proud to win today. This is the best beginning of the Vuelta.”
The Groupama-FDJ rider said he hadn’t planned to dive up the inside of the final corner but just decided to at the last minute and “push to my limit all the way to the line”.
How it happened
Visma-Lease a Bike were pleased to be able to take to the start line for the short stage of the race after suffering a theft of a raft of bikes last night. Vingegaard said before the stage he’d be happy to lose one more thing, the red jersey, which would save his team the effort of defending it until before the major mountains arrive.
With a short stage ahead the break was formed swiftly, within the first 10 kilometres, with four riders heading up the road. Most prominent was Alessandro Verre (Arkéa – B&B Hotels) wearing the polka-dot king of the mountains jersey, though it was Jonas Vingegaard who led the competition. He was joined by Sean Quinn (EF Education-EasyPost), Patrick Gamper (Jayco AlUla) and Luca Van Boven (Intermarché-Wanty).
They swiftly built a cushion of 1.40. Lidl-Trek, working for Mads Pedersen, who was among the favourites for the stage win, set the pace in the peloton to keep them on a short leash.
The American team allowed the gap to climb to nearly two minutes by the bottom of the major climb of the day, the second category ascent of Issiglio (Morris). With the polka-dot leader pushing hard up the climb both Gamper and Van Boven were dropped on the lower slopes of the 5.5km ascent.
Former US champion Quinn clung on but didn’t contest the points at the top and Verre’s reward of five points took him back into the virtual lead of the competition.
Once they had descended the other side of the climb the pair out front continued to work together to maintain a gap of just over two minutes.
Behind the break Pedersen picked up the third place points in the intermediate sprint at 55km to go but was still far off Jasper Philipsen’s tally of 50 points.
As the race crossed the rolling terrain en route to Ceres the gap to the break slowly diminished. When it reached just one minutes Quinn attacked Verre on a short climb and set off in search of glory alone.
Quinn, who has spent much of the year out of competition due to a knee injury, was eventually caught by the Lidl-Trek-led peloton with 19km left to race.
The day’s final climb to Ceres was not a steep or long affair at just 3.6% for 2.6km. With no 3km rule in place the GC teams were battling alongside the sprinters teams to keep their respective leaders towards the front of the pack.
With 15km to go the battle for position was in full swing as the lead-outs competed for supremacy on a wide road that climbed steadily. With 7km to go points jersey wearer Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) was distanced.
With multiple teams pushing the pace the speed climbed to around 50kph, despite the uphill gradient.
As they entered the final 2.5km, the official length of the climb, Visma-Lease a Bike took control at the front of the peloton. With three hairpins in the final kilometre competition for position was key and Ineos Grenadiers also brought Egan Bernal up to the front. Pedersen, came out of the second hairpin in second position with a team-mate in front of him.
In the final hairpin, just tens of metres from the finish, however, David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) slipped up the inside and outsprinted the Dane to the line.
Results: Vuelta a España, stage three, San Maurizio Canavese > Ceres
1. David Gaudu (Fra) Groupama-FDJ, in 2:59.24
2. Mads Pedersen (Den) Lidl-Trek
3. Jonas Vingegaard (Den) Visma-Lease a Bike
4. Giulio Ciccone (ita) Lidl-Trek
5. Jordan Labrosse (Fra) Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale
6. Orluis Aular (Col) Movistar
7. Santiago Buitrago (Col) Bahrain-Victorious
8. Egan Bernal (Col) Ineos Grenadiers
9. Bjorn Koerdt (GBr) Picnic PostNL
10. Jai Hindley (Aus) Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe all at s.t.
General classification after stage three
1. Jonas Vingegaard (Den) Visma-Lease a Bike, in 10:55:36
2. David Gaudu (Fra) Groupama-FDJ at s.t.
3. Giulio Ciccone (Ita) Lidl-Trek, +8s
4. Egan Bernal (Col) Ineos Grenadiers, +14s
5. Tom Pidcock (GBr) Q36.5, +16s
6. Jai Hindley (Aus) Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe
7. Santiago Buitrago (Col) Bahrain-Victorious
8. Matteo Jorgenson (USA) Visma-Lease a Bike
9. Juan Ayuso (Spa) UAE Team Emirates-XRG
10. Valentin Paret Peintre (Fra) Soudal Quick-Step, all same time
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