14 DAY TRIAL // Stage 3 will see the peloton travel more than 200 kilometers from Vise to Tournai, taking a detour in order to also show off the very beautiful city of Namur.
This is territory that has seen a lot of fighting during the Medieval period and has once again been visited by violence during World War II, but the route is somewhat subdued and has little in the way of hills and a finish that seems to be pancake flat and ready for the sprinter’s teams to control.
The stage debuted rather in tame fashion, but sure enough group after group of riders tried to get away and form a breakaway.
I didn’t try to get a man ahead of the pack and also refused to control the pace and the team of Lars Boom, the current Maillot Jeaune, also let a group of 4 riders go. Yet, it was clear that they would never get to the finish in front.
After the lone Category 4 climb and an intermediate sprint, the advantage of the break reached about 6 minutes and then Lampre and Sky started working and it went down.
I put no one on the front and created a scenario for the finish with Montfort and Wagner leading out my main sprinter, Daniele Benatti.
I am not set up to create a sprint train and, with about 4 km to go, I was head to head with the other sprinters teams.
Unfortunately, I had misjudged the effort of my leading rider and then lost quite a bit of group.
Panicking, I left it too late for Wagner and then Benatti to sprint and, almost predictably, Mark Cavendish of Sky managed to take the stage without seemingly having any problem with the other competitors.
Peter Sagan is my pick for today’s real-world winner.
You can see the last 30 kilometers of the stage below.
