The Italian simone velasco (Astana) was awarded the third stage of Return to the Valencian Communitybetween Bétera and Sagunto, of 145.1 kilometers, by beating his breakaway partner Bob Jungels (Bora) and Jonas Gregaard Wisly (Uno X-Pro) in the sprint, with a time of 3:13:48 hours .
From the first quintet of escapees and after a hundred kilometers of adventure with climbs to the Oronet (2ºC) and Garbí (1ºC) passes, the trio barely reached the finish line before a peloton was on top of them.
The Italian Giulio Ciccone (Trek-Segrafedo) remains the overall leader for the second day, followed by Pello Bilbao 3 seconds behind and the current champion, Alexandr Vlasov, 6 seconds behind, waiting on the queen stage this Saturday It could be be decisive in the battle for the victory of the Volta.
The stage began nervously, with several breakaway attempts neutralized by the peloton, which covered the first 25 kilometers in a group. Bob Jungels and Simone Velasco jumped successfully and after them Jonas Gregaard Wisly, Sander De Pestel (Sport Vlaanderen–Balois) and Lawson Craddock (Jayco) were added shortly afterwards to form a quintet that finally managed to come together and place the earth in the middle.
At the start of Oronet port, in the second category and 60 kilometers from the finish line, the breakaways were close to four minutes apart, a lead they maintained when crowning the top with Jungels at the head of the group.
From behind, it was tested Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates), who put the peloton on the climb in half a minute, even though his adventure would only last a few kilometers.
On the climb to Garbí, with a 4-kilometer climb with an average elevation gain of 7.15 percent and a maximum slope of 22 percent, the peloton, led by the UAE Emirates, smoothed out the differences and De Pestel descended from the fleeing group.
Lawson Craddok left his three escape companions in the final kilometers of the climb and sought adventure alone with 30 kilometers to go. The American took a 20-second advantage over the chasing trio and at the back, the head of a split pack, remained at 1:20.
On the way to Sagunto, Craddok loses steam. He was first caught and then overtaken by the leading trio, who faced the last 10 kilometers for almost 45 seconds before the peloton, led by Bahrain for another stage, was at a cruising pace to neutralize the break.
However, the Luxembourgish jungleswith great effort and pulling his teammates, kept the breakaway alive and they entered the last thousand meters with a few seconds advantage enough to dispute the stage, which Simone won after starting the sprint 200 meters from the finish line.
Source: La Verdad
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