Axel Laurance (Ineos Grenadiers) continued his run of success this season with the two-up sprint victory on stage 3 at Itzulia Basque Country.
The Frenchman launched off the wheel of breakaway companion Igor Arrieta (AE Team Emirates-XRG), who started his sprint first but faded in the final metres on the uphill finale, securing his fourth win of the season. Arrieta was forced to settle for second place in Basauri.
The pair were part of a larger 16-rider breakaway that formed mid-race, but they split off the front at the top of the last categorised ascent, Sarasola, with roughly 25km remaining of the 153km race.
Natnael Tesfatsion (Movistar), who was also part of the original breakaway, crossed the line in third place from the chase-group sprint.
Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM Team) maintained his overall race lead with 1:59 ahead of Primož Roglič and 2:08 ahead of Florian Lipowitz (both Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe).
How it unfolded
The peloton raced along a challenging 152.8km route in and around Basauri for the third stage at the Itzulia Basque Country. They climbed three categorised ascents, all in the second half of the race: Barrerilla (5km at 6.5%), Bikotx-Gane (8km at 5%) and Sarasola (2km at 6%), before an undulating run-in to the finishing city and a short, steep climb to the finish line in Basauri.
Seixas started the day in the race lead after winning the opening two stages ahead of Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe teammates Roglič and Florian Lipowitz.
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A series of attacks on the flatter opening half of the race were not strong enough to materialise into a breakaway, but did cause several splits to form in the peloton. A 16-rider breakaway eventually emerged with roughly 90km to go, just ahead of the first main ascent, Barrerilla.
The group included Laurance, Arrieta and Tesfatsion along with Ilan Van Wilder (Soudal-QuickStep), Tobias Halland Johannessen (Uno-X Mobility), Lorenzo Fortunato (XDS Astana Team), Guillaume Martin (Groupama-FDJ United), Clément Braz Afonso (Groupama-FDJ United), Jardi Christiaan van der Lee (EF Education-EasyPost), James Shaw (EF Education-EasyPost), Joan Bou (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), Matthew Dinham (Picnic PostNL), Reuben Thompson(Lotto Intermarché), Sinuhé Fernández (Burgos Burpellet BH), Jonathan Lastra (Euskaltel-Euskadi) and Mikel Bizkarra (Euskaltel-Euskadi).
During the flurry of activity,…
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