Tanel Kangert (Astana) soloed to victory on the Jebel Hafeet on stage 3 of the Abu Dhabi Tour. He topped Nicolas Roche (Team Sky) by 17 seconds after the two broke away on the final climb, with Mekseb Debesay (Dimension Data) taking an impressive third place. Kangert now leads Roche in the overall classification by 21 seconds.
"Yesterday, Vincenzo told me that he was going to work for me today and I knew that I had a chance to do something. If I have the chance then I really have to use it and luckily I had the legs today," said Kangert.
"We knew from the start that we had two good climbers here, Vincenzo and, if I had good legs, I knew that I could also be there. Luckily, I had a good day and that was the tactic, we just had to be there in the final. For a moment, it was quite hectic with the side wind but luckily our team was really good and strong in the beginning, and they protected us from the crosswinds. I arrived on the climb quite fresh.
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"I think he [Roche] was more tired than I was, and I was a little bit afraid of a headwind in the final but luckily the wind changed direction."
With 10-kilometre climb to the finish, stage 3 of the Abu Dhabi Tour was a crucial one for the overall classification. It started calmly enough with Greg Van Avermaet (BMC Racing), Michael O'Loughlin (WIGGINS), Marco Coledan (Trek-Segafredo) and Evgeny Shalunov (Gazprom-Rusvelo) getting away in the opening kilometres. The quartet was allowed over five minutes of an advantage before crosswinds caused a stirring of action in the bunch behind.
Team Sky led the charge when the gusts hit the peloton with just under 60 kilometres to the line. Their efforts did some damage, forcing the peloton into three groups and bringing the leaders to within two minutes. The shake-up didn't have any serious victims as all the main contenders made the cut, along with race leader Mark Cavendish.
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