Belkin continued their overwhelming domination of the Tour of Hainan when the team took its third win in three days of racing in the bunch kick on stage three. For the second day in a row, Theo Bos beat teammate Moreno Hofland in the sprint while the latter extended his overall lead due to bonus seconds.

Prior to the Tour of Hainan, Belkin was expected to have a major say on the race as the Dutch squad was the only ProTeam in the race but few would have expected their domination to be as impressive as it has been during the first three days of the race. After Moreno Hofland's win on day one and Theo Bos' and Hofland's 1-2 on stage 2, the latter duo repeated their performance on today's third stage.

Like yesterday, the team controlled the race and made sure that all would be decided in a big bunch sprint. With Lars Boom playing the role of lead-out man, the Belkin train dominated the final kilometres and delivered Bos to his second consecutive win.

Being the overall leader, Hofland was once again allowed to sit on Bos' wheel and do his own sprint. Like yesterday, he stayed in that position all the way to the finish to take 2nd while Yury Metlushenko (Ukraine) - the oldest rider in the race at age 37 - finished 3rd.

Having taken six bonus seconds at the finish, Hofland extended his overall lead over Frederic Amorison (Crelan) to 33 seconds. That will be his advantage on tomorrow's 183,6km fourth stage which contains the race's first categorized climb at the 89km mark. However, the route is mostly flat and another bunch sprint is the likely outcome.

A flat stage

The Tour of Hainan continued in its traditional sprinter-friendly manner on the 148,8km third stage from Haikou to Qionghai. An almost completely flat route made a bunch kick the likely outcome and most riders expected the fast finishers to come to the fore.

Like yesterday, the race was off to a fast start and it took a long time for the break to finally get established. After 50km of racing, 6 riders finally took off when Liu Jian Peng (Hengxiang), André Benoit (Quantec), Antoine Lavieu (La Pomme Marseille), Jesus Del Pino (Burgos-BH), Aandriy Vasylyuk (Ukraine) and Samir Jabrayilov (Synergy Baku) opened up a gap.

Belkin leads the chase

Behind, Belkin started to chase with young Marc Goos doing the early work. Up ahead, the escapees picked up the bonus seconds at the two first intermediate sprints with Vasylyuk and Liu passing the lines in first position.

Vasylyuk set off on his own while his former companions were caught by the peloton. With 15km to go, he was still 1.30 ahead and was still riding well.

Manan takes the Asian riders' jersey

The Ukrainian was the first across the line in the final intermediate sprint while Anuar Manan beat William Walker in the sprint for 2nd. Thus the Malaysian picked up two bonus seconds and so took the lead in the Asian riders' competition.

Vasylyuk did a good job to stay away but in the end, he was up against too strong opponents. The peloton swallowed him up and Belkin took control as they prepared the sprint for Bos. The Dutch sprinter lived up to expectations when he beat teammate Hofland and Metlushenko in the final dash to the line.

Result:

1. Theo Bos 3.19.34

2. Moreno Hofland

3. Yury Metlushenko

4. Lars Boom

5. Justin Jules

6. Jose Goncalves

7. Michael Kurth

8. Fabian Schnaidt

9. Christoph Schweizer

10. William Walker

General classification:

1. Moreno Hofland 9.22.33

2. Frederic Amorison +0.33

3. Tom Leezer +0.43

4. Fabian Schnaidt +0.47

5. William Walker

6. Christopher Williams

7. Jos Van Emden

8. Kevin Peeters +0.49

9. Jose Goncalves +0.50

10. Adrian Honkisz

Points classification:

1. Moreno Hofland 62

2. Fabian Schnaidt 35

3. Theo Bos 32

4. Lars Boom 27

5. Yury Metlushenko 24

Teams classification:

1. Belkin 28.09.52

2. Crelan-Euphony +0.34

3. Drapac +0.49

4. Ukraine

5. La Pomme Marseille +1.13