Tour of Beijing (st. 3)

Dayer Quintana goes on long breakaway, Jesús Herrada keeps attention to stay in Young Riders' lead and 5th overall after 1" bonus. Mentougou mountain-top finish to decide GC tomorrow

Just like happened last year with a stage exact same to today’s, over 176 kilometers and seven rated climbs en route to Qianjiadian, the bunch did not really split much and a field sprint saw American Tyler Farrar (GRS) coming victorious across the line of stage three in the Tour of Beijing. It was still a pretty good day for the Movistar Team riders, who fought for the day’s break in the opening stages before the first intermediate sprint, where Jesús Herrada (3rd) took a 1-second bonus which keeps him on top of the Young Riders’ standings as well as 5th overall.

With the first ‘hot point’ of the day done and dusted, Dayer Quintana eventually made the most important escape, six riders staying up-front with gaps up to six minutes and only caught at the final uphill, Huang Tu Liang (Cat-2), by a peloton with several attacks trying to avoid the sprint, including one by Pablo Lastras. No less than fourty riders are within half a minute’s reach of Philippe Gilbert (BMC) -including MOV’s Herrada, Sanz and Lastras- before what looks to be the mountain showdown at Mentougou (Cat-2; 12.6km, 5.7%) tomorrow.