This Saturday, Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux had the mission to defend the yellow leader’s jersey of Lorenzo Rota, after his stage win on the top of Pustevny one day before.
The third stage of the Sazka Tour, which is considered as the queen stage, finished on top of Dlouhé Stráně (10 km à 6,6%), which had to be covered twice on the parcours of 148 kilometer.
The solid team first controlled the early breakaway of twelve riders, which was caught during the first passage of Dlouhé Stráně, so more than 30 kilometer before the finish.
In contrary to the heat of the preceding days, the riders were confronted with wet roads and temperatures below 20 degrees. It was in these conditions that the best climbers fought for the win on the final climb.
Thanks to his sixth place on the top, Lorenzo Rota keeps his yellow leader’s kit before the final stage on a hilly course in Šternberk.
« It is fantastic to be welcomed by my home crowds after six weeks without competition! And Lorenzo’s success makes it even nicer to be here in my national tour with the team. I’m so happy for him, he finally has his first pro win. We managed to defend his leader’s jersey well today. The early breakaway was composed of twelve riders, so Théo Delacroix and Barnabás Peák had to spend quite some energy to keep their advantage under 3 minutes. I thought that this was the ideal gap to start the two last climbs with. Dlouhé Stráně is probably one of the most difficult climbs you can ride on the bike in Czech Republic, because we don’t really have mountains here. However, I didn’t know the climb before covering it in last year’s edition of the Sazka Tour. » « I know tomorrow’s course a lot better since it is the traditional closing stage of this tour. I even managed to win it once in 2014. We will really have to race attentively because of the technical character of the parcours. With the bonus seconds underway and at the finish, the cobbled climb and many corners on the local lap and the finish on cobbles there are opportunities to make small differences until the very end. But we are here with six strong riders to support Lorenzo and in my opinion he’s one of the favorites for the stage win tomorrow. Yesterday’s victory definitely changed a lot for him. He radiates confidence and that’s what he needs to secure the overall victory. »
Jan Hirt Tweet