Stage three: Consonni is 8th in the bunch sprint

Simone Consonni is back for a turn in the top 10 in a World Tour race, an achievement already accomplished three times before during his first season among the pros.
The young rider from UAE Team Emirates closed out the 186 km, 3rd stage of the BinckBank Tour, from Blanckenberge to Ardooie, in 8th place.

The short World Tour stage race travelled from Holland to Belgium and saw the stage being driven for a long time by five riders (Backaert, Koren, Allegaert, Renders and Cordeel), who were caught by the pack in preparation for the final sprint.
Well protected by his fellow team mates, Consonni threw himself into the mix of the final sprint (photo Bettini) on roads rendered slippery by the rain, finding a narrow opening in the final metres to eke out a few positions and grab 8th place.

Victory went to Sagan over Theuns and Barbier. In the general classification, Kung is now in command, with Ganna 14th, 20” back and Swift 24th, behind by 27”.

Consonni described the sprint like this: “My team mates did a great job to keep me in the leading positions: from very wide roads the race started heading towards the centre of the small town and the roadway became more and more narrow. Furthermore, a few drops of rain made the last curves slippery and dangerous.
Troia was fantastic in taking me into the final curve, however in spite of that I ended up slightly closed in and I had to jostle for space to recoup. Being among the first ten is a decent achievement, but I hope to do better in the next stages.”

The 4th fraction will cover a distance of 160.7 km, starting and finishing in Lanaken.

Stage 3 results
1 Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) 4h14’01”
2 Edward Theuns (Trek-Segafredo) s.t.
3 Rudy Barbier (Ag2R La Mondiale) s.t.
8 Simone Consonni (UAE Team Emirates) s.t.

General classification after stage 3
1 Stefan Kung (BMC) 8h15’08”
2 Maciej Bodnar (Bora-Hansgrohe) 4″
3 Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb) 5″
14 Filippo Ganna (UAE Team Emirates) 20″