The rain and sun played hide and seek during the 3rd stage of the Tour of Switzerland.  And in the same way, the peloton had fun toying with the breakaways between Flims and Schwarzenbach.  The five riders who slipped away within the first hour had little chance of success as they fell under the yoke of an Orica-GreenEDGE team that was determined to clinch the stage win.

Orica-GreenEDGE’s work was indeed repaid. On the false flat leading up to the finish, Michael Matthews (Orica GreenEDGE) allowed no possibility for Peter Sagan to take the sprint, especially after Arnaud Démare, Mark Cavendish as well as Alexander Kristof were unable to keep pace with the peloton on the final circuit.  Tom Dumoulin (Giant Alpecin) has managed to retain his yellow jersey while Stefan Denifl also succeeded in keeping his lead in the king of the mountains competition, with the queen’s stage finishing at the top of Sölden, near his Tyrolean home, yet to come.

Having been relegated to 45th place but in the same time as the winner, after having crashed with Joaquin Rojas, Larry Warbasse was not too disappointed with his abrupt finish. 

“Fortunately, I fell in slow motion, and I did not hurt myself too much.  I had a mission all day to help and protect Martin Elmiger and Sébastien Reichenbach all the way to the finish.  Martin was unable to follow the hellish pace that Orica set, so was not there to compete in the sprint.  I managed to keep Sébastien in my draft, and he finished in good position. 

"Personally I feel better and better, even if today the speed was super high.  I would have expected the pack to race more conservatively in view of the stage we’ll face on Wednesday.”

Kjell Carlström, directeur sportif for IAM Cycling along with Mario Chiesa, was pleased with the way the day unfolded. 

“We have achieved our goal of keeping the mountains jersey with Stefan before the queen stage to the Rettenbach.  But we have also kept Sébastien Reichenbach, our leader for the GC, well placed.  Now we are looking forward to a stage with a final climb that should suit him.”