Simon Geschke was the most active from the team at the Ruta del Sol making the day’s breakaway on today’s stage 3 which saw the race’s first mountain top finish at Alto de Hazallanas after 160km of racing. However with the day being a big opportunity to make ground on GC the break’s chances were slim and they were eventually reeled in before the base of the final ascent.

Geschke was part of the ten man move that formed early in the stage and looked to be one of the strongest as they pushed out their advantage over the peloton behind to over a few minutes but they were never allow too much leg-room. The day was up for the ten with 15km to go as all eyes turned towards the final climb of the day.

Given his fall two days before, Daan Olivier was open to see how he was feeling on the final climb and to whether he really went for it or sat back to recover if not feeling great. He didn’t insist too much as the GC leaders took off from the base of the climb and rode within himself to finish in good shape with a long season ahead of him which will hold plenty of chances to shine.

Team Giant-Alpecin coach Christian Guiberteau said after the finish: “It was a hard day today with a real mountain to finish with ramps of up to 20%. The plan was to get a rider in the day’s break as if there was the right composition there’s always a chance the GC teams would look at each other. Simon was really motivated for this and did well to get himself in the day’s move but they were reeled in just before the final climb.

“From here we said to Daan that if he was struggling from his crash the other day then he should recover and not push too deep. We haven’t had much luck in the past days here with the crash on the first day and then Tobias [Ludvigsson] retiring from the race, but there are still a few days left where we can continue to take our chances. The atmosphere in the group is really good, we got second yesterday and everyone is really motivated so we can look forward to the coming days.”

Simon Geschke added: “Yeah it was hard today, but I wanted to be in the break already before the start and I’m glad that I was good enough to get in there. Tinkoff-Saxo never gave us more than a few minutes though so we had to fight all day. I tried for the KOM points but this didn’t work out so I made it into a really good training day.

“Tomorrow I think will be a lot like today, as it’s nearly all up and down. We will try again and I’d like to go for the break again, before another final chance for a sprint with John [Degenkolb] on Sunday.”