Magnus Cort Nielsen (Orica-Scott) has won the third stage of the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, defeating Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis) and Bryan Coquard (Direct Energie) for the win.
A six-rider breakaway formed early but by the mid-point of the stage the gap was already down to two minutes as the sprinter’s teams did not want to take any chances, following yesterday’s stage that saw a solo move stay away.
Yet that almost happened again as Josh Van Emden (LottoNL-Jumbo) attacked out of the peloton with 25km to go and passed the doomed breakaway. But with too many kilometres remaining the solo effort was put down and the race was back together with 10km to go.
“The team rode perfectly today and it is really nice to start the season with a win,” said Cort. “It was pretty technical in the last kilometre and it was very important to be in a good position for the last left hander and it took good work from everyone to get me into position.”
“I am really happy I could finish it off for the team and a big thank you to the guys for helping me achieve the win.”
Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana 2017 – stage 3 results (Canals – Riba-Roja de Túria):
| 1 | Magnus Cort Nielsen (Orica-Scott) | 3:49:03 |
| 2 | Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis) | ,, |
| 3 | Bryan Coquard (Direct Energie) | ,, |
| 4 | Yves Lampaert (Quick-Step Floors) | ,, |
| 5 | Enrique Sanz Unzue (Spain) | ,, |
| 6 | Samuel Caldeira (W52/FC Porto) | ,, |
| 7 | Oliver Naesen (AG2R) | ,, |
| 8 | Zakkari Dempster (Cycling Academy) | ,, |
| 9 | Greg Van Avermaet (BMC) | ,, |
| 10 | Viacheslav Kuznetsov (Katusha-Alpecin) | ,, |
General classification after stage 3:
| 1 | Greg Van Avermaet (BMC) | 9:17:13 |
| 2 | Ben Hermans (BMC) | ,, |
| 3 | Manuel Senni (BMC) | +07” |
| 4 | David Lopez (Team Sky) | +28” |
| 5 | Nicolas Roche (BMC) | +44” |
| 6 | David De La Cruz (Quick-Step Floors) | +48” |
| 7 | Philippe Gilbert (Quick-Step Floors) | +49” |
| 8 | Zdenek Stybar (Quick-Step Floors) | ,, |
| 9 | Nairo Quintana (Movistar) | +54” |
| 10 | Daniel Martin (Quick-Step Floors) | +56” |
