Mark Cavendish won the 3rd stage of the Tour of Italy on Sunday at Balatonfüred, the last Hungarian stopover of the Giro, by adjusting to the peloton sprint, which is still led in Mathieu van der Poel’s overall classification.
Faster than Arnaud Démare and Fernando Gaviria, the Briton signed his sixteenth round of victory in pink corsa after 201 monotonous kilometers around the emerald waters of Lake Balaton before the day of the move on Monday.
Neither the Frenchman nor the Colombian could allow the veteran to celebrate his 37th birthday in less than two weeks.
I had to start the sprint 300 meters from the line. I had to stay up front then, I was happy I was able to hold on to winsavoring Cavendish, winning 160th time in the professional peloton on Saturday.
The man from the Isle of Man did not fail to thank his team and especially morkyespecially Dane Michaël Morkov, one of the best pilot fish in the world, who was more supportive of him in July so he could match Eddy Merckx’s record for stage victories at the Tour de France (34).
The Giro peloton, reduced to 175 riders, lost element in the abandonment of Slovenian Jan Tratnik who fell on Friday, who decided to get off his bike a few kilometers after leaving the colorful city of Kaposvar.
The speed of the race is not in question because, with an hourly average of 40.7 km/h, the runners reached the finish on the shores of Lake Balaton ten minutes behind the most recent time.
The Verona arena is still far away in Italy and only the crumbs of the more than 50,000 meter elevation gain announced by the organizers in the three -week race have been swallowed up.
Mathieu van der Poel, happy to bring the goods to Italy is not worried but he probably lived to his penultimate stage in pink.
After a day of rest and especially a move that will allow runners to land in Catania, the road will stand on Tuesday with a volcano coming to the top of Etna (22.8 km on a 5.9% average gradient).
Source: Radio-Canada
