Sunweb's Michael Matthews claimed stage 3 of the Tour de Suisse on Monday, out-sprinting Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) and John Degenkolb (Trek-Segafredo) in Bern.
After a hectic uphill run-in to the line, Sunweb hit the front for the finishing straight to put Matthews into prime position for the final kick. The 26-year-old Australian launched with 150 metres to go and none of those behind came particularly close to pulling even with him, despite a bit of argy-bargy in his wake.
"I struggled a little bit on the climb. I wasn't climbing so well today but it was good enough," Matthews said. "I saw that I had a teammate there with Nikias Arndt and that gave me massive motivation because I knew he could do a really big pull and that made it perfect for me to do my sprint at the right time, not like last year when I got boxed in during the Tour. It’s nice to get the win that I really wanted last year."
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Having finished fourth in the opening prologue and adding bonus seconds with his stage 3 win, Matthews now leads the Tour de Suisse by 10 seconds over teammate Tom Dumoulin. After taking bonus seconds in both intermediate sprints, overnight leader Stefan Küng (BMC) was distanced in the run-in to the finish, and came across the line in a group 19 seconds down, slipping to 12th overall.
"It will be nice having the leader's jersey tomorrow. The team won the Giro d'Italia so I guess they know how to ride on the front now," Matthews said.
After a slow start to the afternoon that saw the pack allow two breakaway riders - Elmar Reinders (Roompot - Nederlandse Loterij) and Lasse Norman Hansen (Aqua Blue Sport) - to get a nine-minute advantage, the tempo rose steadily in the latter half of the stage, setting up a frantic finale after the escapees were reeled in with 13 kilometres to go.
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