Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) won stage 3 of the BinckBank Tour, beating Edward Theuns (Trek-Segafredo) and Rudy Barbier (AG2R La Mondiale) in a bunch finish in Ardooie to clock up his second win of the week and the 99th victory of his professional career.
Expelled from the Tour de France following his clash with Mark Cavendish in the finishing straight in Vittel, Sagan has been in a rich vein of form since he returned to action at the Tour de Pologne last week, and he delivered another powerful sprint effort to take the spoils on the BinckBank Tour’s first Belgian stage.
The 10-second time bonus for stage victory lifts Sagan back up to third place in the general classification, just 10 seconds behind race leader Stefan Küng (BMC), and on the evidence of the week to date; the world champion will be the overwhelming favourite to claim final overall victory in Geraardsbergen on Sunday.
“For sure this is very good but there will come one day where there’ll be a lot of groups and a lot of gaps,” Sagan said when asked about his overall prospects. “It’s about seconds and in the end, day-by-day.”
On each of the BinckBank Tour’s three days to date, Sagan has scarcely put a pedal stroke askew. After winning Monday’s opening stage, he defly limited his losses in atrocious conditions during Tuesday’s time trial, and on Wednesday afternoon, he was well-positioned throughout the rain-soaked, treacherous finishing circuit in Ardooie.
A number of the marquee sprint names were marked absent in the finale on Wednesday – most notably Marcel Kittel (Quick-Step Floors), André Greipel (Lotto Soudal) and Elia Viviani (Team Sky) – while others were held up by the crash involving Sep Vanmarcke (Cannondale-Drapac) just outside the flamme rouge.
Sagan, however, didn’t miss a beat, and he held his nerve when Jempy Drucker (BMC) took advantage of the late confusion by launching a spirited attack inside the final kilometre. Drucker opened a decent advantage over a fractured peloton and briefly looked set to upset the fast men and claim stage victory, only for Sagan to unfurl a crisp sprint in the finishing sprint.
Sagan’s fierce acceleration saw him rip clear of the peloton and sweep past Drucker. Theuns and Barbier managed to make up some ground in the final 50 metres, but by then the result was already beyond doubt. Dylan Groenewegen (LottoNL-Jumbo) was a distant fourth, while Loic Vliegen (BMC) took fifth.
On Monday, Sagan edged out Phil Bauhaus (Sunweb) by mere millimetres to take stage 1, and he positioned himself carefully on the German’s wheel as they dived into the final corner here. Both men opened their sprints at the same time, but while Bauhaus took the long way around by going left, and wound up in 10th, Sagan’s instincts served him well as he went to the right and found nothing but open road before him. Not for the first time, it all seemed disarmingly easy for the world champion.
“For sure not,” Sagan insisted. “Today I remembered we are racing again in Belgium because today was like a spring Classic. It was crazy, all day in the front, the trains trying to overtake one against another. It was a crazy day. It started to rain also, and was very dangerous - in the final there was a crash. I’m very happy because team Bora-Hansgrohe and my teammates worked very well and we took another victory, which is amazing for us.”
How it unfolded
The flat run from Blankenberge to Ardooie was always likely to finish in a bunch sprint, but Frederik Backaert (Wanty-Groupe Gobert), Sander Cordeel (Veranda's Willems Crelan), Piet Allegaert (Sport Vlaanderen - Baloise) Kristijan Koren (Cannondale-Drapac) and Elmar Reinders (Roompot - Nederlandse Loterij) tilted at the windmill by escaping up the road in the opening kilometres.
The quintet combined well together but never established anything like the kind of lead required to upset the sprinters, and their dwindling hopes were reduced still further when Orica-Scott and then Lotto Soudal attempted to split the peloton with a bout of fierce pace-making with 50 kilometres to go. Indeed, it briefly seemed as though the escapees would be pegged back there and then, but when Greipel ordered his red guard to relent, it gave the break a stay of execution and their lead stretched back out to a minute.
Backaert proceeded to win all three of the bonus sprints during the so-called Golden Kilometre on the first of two laps of the 15-kilometre finishing circuit in Ardooie, though the sprinters’ teams were already beginning to wind up the pace in advance of the inevitable bunch sprint. Backaert and company stuck to their task and remained in front until the final 9 kilometres, when they were finally swept up by the peloton.
As on Monday, Marcel Kittel seemed to be squeezed out of the business end of the bunch even before the sprint had begun to wind-up in earnest, and any poorly-placed riders had their hopes dashed irretrievably by Vanmarcke’s crash a little over a kilometre from the finish. The bunch split into small groups in the confusion, though the time gaps did not count towards the general classification and Küng defended his overall lead.
Sagan’s teammate Maciej Bodnar – still second overall, 4 seconds down on Küng – was very prominent at the head of the bunch on the finishing circuit, marshalling his captain as leaden drops of rain began to fall over Ardooie in the finale.
Sagan was coy, meanwhile, when asked about his prospects of landing his 100th win in Lanaken on Thursday. “We’ll see,” Sagan said. “First we have to survive until tomorrow.”
Peter Sagan takes the win in Ardooie #BinckBankTour http://pic.twitter.com/ZhVMvgSXst
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— BinckBank Tour (@BinckBankTour) August 9, 2017
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