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Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) was in full command on stage 3 of the Tour of Belgium, making up for his botched dash on the day prior to this by sprinting to an all however uncontested victory in Scherpenheuvel-Zichem.
Philipsen’s workforce did a textbook lead-out, dropping the Belgian on the entrance with 200 metres to go and no different rider may even come alongside.
Olav Kooij (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Gerben Thijssen (Intermarché-Wanty) completed second and third on the stage a motorbike size behind, with stage 2 winner Tim Merlier (Soudal-Quickstep) in fourth.
Stage 1 winner and race chief Søren Wærenskjold (Uno-X Mobility) used the ‘golden kilometre’ trio of time bonus sprints to make sure he would head into stage 4 within the chief’s jersey.
The way it unfolded
Stage 3 from Turnhout to Scherpenheuvel-Zichem was one other day for the sprinters and their groups saved the race underneath tight management for a second straight stage.
Lindsay De Vylder (Flanders-Baloise), Diego Sevilla (Polti-Kometa), Yorben Lauryssen (Pauwels Sauzen-Bingoal), Stijn Appel (Beat Biking), Quentin Bezza (Philippe Wagner/Bazin), Stijn Daemen and Jago Willems (Volkerwessels) made the day’s early breakaway. However as within the earlier stage, they have been by no means allowed to get greater than two minutes on the peloton.
A large crash blocked your entire highway with 78km to go, splitting the peloton into two however that did not gradual the chase. Because the hole got here down beneath a minute on the ultimate lap, Daemen misplaced contact however was changed by Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale’s Sander De Pestel who bridged throughout to make it seven once more.
The peloton lastly caught the escapees with 34km to go along with Uno-X Mobility eager to ship race chief Wærenskjold to the time bonus sprints within the ‘golden kilometre’ with 28km to go, the place there are three sprints with 3, 2 and 1 seconds on the road. Wærenskjold received the primary and third, however teammate Rasmus Tiller may not have let off sufficient on the second.
Following the sprints, an assault got here with Alec Segaert (Lotto Dstny) escaping with Robbe Ghys (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Alex Aranburu (Movistar). Quickly Kasper Asgreen (Soudal-Quickstep) bridged throughout however Uno-X Mobility nailed the transfer again.
One other large crash with 19km to go took Fabio Jakobsen (Staff dsm-Firmenich-PostNL) out of the image and cut up the peloton. After 10km, teams began to rejoin what was left of the entrance bunch, led by Lidl-Trek.
Alpecin-Deceuninck fought their method to the entrance for Philipsen for an additional barely uphill drag to the road. Having waited too lengthy on stage 2, this time spherical Philipsen timed his dash completely to take the stage for the second yr in a row.
Outcomes
Outcomes powered by FirstCycling
