Lotto Ladies Tour (st. 3)

Polish allrounder makes front group alongside Teruel (still under-23 leader), González, Biannic after tough stage three; Australian suffers deep cut to to left knee after falling down in Germany.

Coryn Rivera (SUN) is dominating the 2018 Lotto Thüringen Ladies Tour so far, adding a second stage win to her tally on Wednesday’s third day of racing around Schleiz (131km), a route with longer climbs than the previous days yet with a very gentle last 25km, where the breakaways -even a powerful duo including Lucinda Brand (SUN) and Emilia Fahlin (WHT)- did not stand a chance to succeed.

The Movistar Team sadly went down to five women on Wednesday due to a crash by Rachel Neylan in the beginning of stage three, with a deep cut to her left knee preventing the Australian from carrying on. Still, the Blues did not stop fighting, and led the peloton at various phases of the race and even got their under-23 classification leader Alba Teruel into one of the numerous breaks formed during the stage.

A 40-rider group came together across the line, with Małgorzata Jasińska (6th), Teruel, Alicia González and Aude Biannic as Blue representatives, all still within contention of a GC whose main characters remain within 40″ of each other. Thursday’s stage four (116km in and around Gera) will try to shake things up once again, with the demanding Strasse des Bergmanns hill just seven kilometers from the end.

Picture (c): Cover, 2/ Vélofocus; 1/ Lotto Thüringen Ladies Tour