The 3rd stage of the Tour of Demark was termed the queen stage and Matti Breschel (Tinkoff-Saxo) would be the rider to take the victory. MTN-Qhubeka p/b Samsung were active once again with Jacques Janse van Rensburg in the breakaway and Gerald Ciolek 6th on the stage.
The 185km stage which started and finished in Vejle included numerous short sharp climbs throughout the day. Jacques Janse van Rensburg took the stage head on by jumping into the 6 rider break of the day. The peloton allowed the gap to grow to just under 6 minutes before starting the chase.
Astana and Tinkoff did much of the pace making which resulted in van Rensburg's group getting caught with 30km to go. Not content to give in just yet, the South African champ attacked again with Jay McCarthy (Tinkoff-Saxo). The duo built up a 25” lead before the favourites started firing from the peloton, which was already a very reduced group.
With 17km to go the break was caught and the next move that went proved to be decisive. 9 riders went clear including Gerald Ciolek. Initially the group worked well to build up a small lead before they began attacking each other with around 8km to go.
In the end, they came back together just under the 1km to go banner and Breschel used his experience to beat Rasmus Guldhammer (Cult Energy) and Alexander Kamp (ColoQuick) to the line.
“It was a tough race today with many short, hard climbs in the final. Tinkoff-Saxo made the move about 50km before the finish, forming a group of 20 riders. Edvald [Boasson Hagen] and I decided that we both needed to try follow the moves. I joined a breakaway of 9 riders and I was feeling good until the last corner where I didn’t really have the legs to speed up again. It was a hard race though and so my performance has made me confident for my upcoming tasks,” Gerald Ciolek said.
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