Tour of the Alps
After two strong performances and a fall, Felix Gall lost ground in the overall standings on Tuesday’s third stage of the Tour of the Alps. The East Tyrolean only finished 16th this time after 162.5 km from Ritten with a mountain finish in Brentonico San Valentino and thus slipped back to tenth place overall. In the fight for the stage win, this time Team Bora was in the lead.
The third section of the tour this time brought a double victory for the German Bora racing team. Lennard Kämna crossed the finish line in 4:06:13 on Wednesday, four seconds ahead of his teammate, the Russian Alexander Wlasow. Briton Tao Geoghegan Hart, fourth on the day, retained the overall leader’s green jersey.
On the other hand, Gall, who fell just before the finish the day before, was not able to stage himself as hoped and lost as 16th of the day. (+1:06 min.) also his second place overall. The AG2R pilot fell back to tenth place overall (+1:20). “I tried everything. We rode the climb from the bottom as a team, I thought that was really cool. We weren’t hiding,” was Gall’s first comment.
After his fall the day before, the East Tyrolean spoke of a “shitty night” with little sleep. “Of course, I also had pain while driving. I felt every manhole cover in my elbow. I suffered like a dog on it.” But it wasn’t such a bad performance. “The fall yesterday certainly didn’t help, I can’t say to what extent it affected me.” Gall, who is still motivated, hopes for the next two days that he can be back in the front runners.
Pöstlberger points out in between
The race was initially dominated by a breakaway group of twelve riders, including the two Austrian national team riders Lukas Pöstlberger and Alexander Hajek. Pöstlberger also won two sprint classifications. He and Italy’s Andrea Vendrame were still left of the breakaway group at the beginning of the 15.5km final climb, but Pöstlberger then took the toll and fell far behind.
After that, the American Joe Dombrowski held on as the solo leader for a while on the final climb, before a group of favorites led by Kämna attacked. In the end, like a year ago, Kämna won the third stage of the Alps Tour, it was the first win of the season for the Bora man this year.