A breathless day of racing on stage 3 of Étoile de Bessèges-Tour du Gard was won by Henri Uhlig (Alpecin-Premier Tech) from a reduced group sprint, who surprised Slovakian national champion Lukáš Kubiš (Unibet Rose Rockets) for his first professional victory and roared in celebration over the line on Friday.
With six categorised climbs on the route, it was expected to be a day for the puncheurs, but several of the fast men hung on and were still present over the last ascent, with Kubiš looking the likely favourite to take victory.
His Unibet Rose Rockets teammates pulled back a late move, which was sparked by Dylan Teuns (Cofidis) in the final run for home, but they got swamped when starting their leadout. Kubiš was jumped by the charging Uhlig, leaving himself too much to do before the line.
Pre-stage race leader Tom Crabbe (Flanders-Baloise) was dropped with 40km to go in the stage, meaning Kubiš – who started the third stage only four seconds down – moved into the leader's jersey, with two stages remaining.
How it unfolded
Stage 3 of Étoile de Bessèges took in a longer fight for the breakaway, with 10 riders only getting ahead after a tough opening 50km, aided in their efforts to move away by the arrival of the seven-kilometre Côte de Méjannes le Clap climb.
It was made up of: Blake Agnoletto (Groupama-FDJ United CT), Kasper Haugland (Decathlon CMA CGM Development Team), Sébastien Grignard (Lotto Intermarché), Alexis Renard (Cofidis), Alexys Brunel (TotalEnergies), Tomáš Kopecký (Unibet Rose Rockets), Alexandre Balmer (Solution Tech NIPPO Rali), Léandre Huck (Van Rysel Roubaix), Théo Delacroix (St Michel-Preference Home-Auber93) and Victor Papon (Nice Métropole Côte d'Azur).
The closest riders on GC at the start were Kopecký and Delacroix, both down on Crabbe by 20 seconds, but with 70km to go, the gap was already being kept close at less than a minute, even without the teams represented helping the chasing efforts.
As the race reached the first of two laps up the Col de Trélis (3.6km at 5.6%), the race started to heat up, with Angoletto and Huck being dropped from the break and Pinarello-Q36.5 launching an attack to try and bridge across.
It wasn't long after that Crabbe started to struggle in the leader's jersey, explaining exactly why Flanders-Baloise hadn't helped the other teams who tried to bring back the original breakaway.
It looked as though the breakaway was doomed and they would soon be caught, with what was almost a minute lead dropping down to under 10 seconds for the first time with 32km to go. Two riders made the most of this, Baptiste Vadic (TotalEnergies) and Jordan Labrosse (Decathlon CMA CGM), who jumped the gap to make it 10 in front again.
Labrosse proved to be the strongest in the group as he attacked, while all of the other breakaways, except for Kopecký, started to falter, with the charging peloton not far behind and more climbs still to come. With 21.3km to go, however, even the Frenchman couldn't hold off the inevitable, and the remnants of the break were caught.
Teuns, Paul Lapeira (Decathlon CMA CGM) and Ewen Costiou (Groupama-FDJ United) were clearly among the strongest climbers up the second lap of the Col de Trélis, but no one could get away and fully drop the remaining fast men.
More late charges were attempted by Cofidis, with Clement Izquierdo attacking before the last climb, but he too was caught, and Teuns again in the final kilometres, but Unibet had enough firepower to bring back the last attacks and allow Kubiš to sprint.
He launched late, though, with Uhlig getting a gap as he kicked past him, and though the Slovakian closed him down quickly and eventually came past him, the German had already crossed the line and celebrated in front of him in Bessèges.
Results
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