With no climbers on the roster, Katusha went into yesterday's queen stage of the Tour de Slovenie with a plan to attack. Pavel Brutt was part of the early breakaway and after his great performance in the opening time trial, he again showed great condition for the upcoming Tour de France.

Stage 3 saw a very active Pavel Brutt. Brutt was in the front all day long with five other riders. They got a maximum bonus of 6 minutes but were caught at 9 kilometers from the finish line because of chasing work from Lampre and Cannondale. At that moment the riders were already tackling the last climb of the day: 15 kilometers uphill to Trije Kralji. Katusha’s Pavel Kochetkov was among the leaders on this climb.

“On that last climb Kochetkov did very well. Until 6 kilometers from the top he was able to follow the favorites but suffered then and had to drop off. On the other hand, he only lost 1 minute 30 seconds to stage winner Francesco Manuel Bongiorno (Bardiani-CSF), which means that Pavel is in a good shape. With a regular pace he finished at 12th position," said team director Claudio Cozzi.

Alexander Rybakov was unable to take the start in Rogaška Slatina after his painful crash of yesterday. Maxim Belkov and Luca Paolini were able to start and finish stage 3 192 kilometer further.

Tomorrow’s final stage 4 brings the riders from Škofja Loka to NovoMesto over 153 kilometer. Tiago Machado (NetApp-Endura), finishing second today behind Bongiorno, is leading the race now. Ilnur Zakarin (RusVelo) is second, 23 seconds behind. Kochetkov is 12th, 1 minute 57 seconds behind.