Two days after his win on the opening stage Luka Mezgec was close to another victory in the Tour of Beijing. The Slovenian ran out of metres in the sprint and had to settle for the second behind Tyler Farrar.

Luka Mezgec has sprinted to second place on the third stage of the Tour of Beijing, coming late but running out of room before the line to take a second win in three days. It is the third stage in succession that the team have finished on one of the top two steps of the podium after Reinardt Janse van Rensburg’s second place on yesterday’s second stage.

A six man group formed the day’s escape and Team Giant-Shimano were keen to keep things under control, putting Cheng Ji on the front after the day’s first category climb mid-race to keep a check on their advantage. The chase was a steady but hard fought one and with 50km to race their advantage was sat at two minutes.

After the break had covered all of the intermediate mountain points their advantage soon started to tumble and with 15km to go their spell out front was all over. This regrouping sparked more attacks but the team were riding well in control on the front together with other team’s intent on having another bunch sprint at the end of play.

Coming into the finish the team positioned Mezgec up near the front but a hectic final few kilometres made it hard to hold position and he had to launch his sprint from a long way back. Moving through the wheels, Mezgec popped out just before the finish into clean air and was coming through fast but he just ran out of room to come past Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Sharp) before the line, leaving him in second.

Tomorrow’s fourth stage is the hardest of the five days in China, with two main first category climbs to tackle, the last of which takes the riders to the finish line. The peloton will also cover two second category and two third category climbs en-route, so a tough day of climbing lies ahead.

After the stage, team coach Lionel Marie gave his thoughts on the race, saying: “It was a tough day with seven climbs on the route to get Luka over. We started to chase with Cheng after the first category climb and then others later on to keep Luka up the front and in position.

“Albert, Reinardt and Luka were together coming into 500m to go but in front some riders braked hard and the guys lost speed here putting Luka behind for the sprint. He did a great push to come back as he did but in the end it was too late and he took second. Tomorrow will be a very different story with the focus changing from the sprints to the climbs.”