⏪ Un excellent travail d'équipe pour une victoire au sprint de @Sammmy_Be, revivez le dernier kilomètre de cette étape 3⃣ du #Dauphiné.
— Critérium du Dauphiné (@dauphine) June 11, 2019
⏪ Great teamwork for @Sammmy_Be's sprint victory, relive the last kilometre of stage 3⃣. pic.twitter.com/WE4mIAxHbj
IRISH SPEED KING Sam Bennett left rival sprinters reeling on Tuesday, timing his mass bunch sprint effort to perfection to win the pancake flat 171km third stage of the Criterium du Dauphine by a clear margin.
The 28-year-old Bora-hangrohe sprinter has been on sparkling form this season picking up seven stage victories including two at Paris-Nice and making his case for inclusion in the Tour de France team.
The Criterium overall leader Belgium’s Dylan Teuns of Bahrein Merida kept the yellow jersey as all the main contenders such as Chris Froome, Adam Yates and Richie Porte finished at the same time.
Ahead of a challenging individual time-trial which will reset the agenda on Wednesday, Tuesday’s race is the only flat one on the eight-day Criterium, which is seen as a form gauge for July’s Tour de France.
The Eritrean rider Natnael Berhane and Frenchman Quentin Pacher led a long breakaway through the rolling green fields around the Put-de-Dome region but were caught up with around five kilometres to go.
That set up a classic mass bunch sprint where Bennett came out ahead of Belgian Wout Van Aert and the Italian Davide Ballerini.
Dan Martin, meanwhile, was 76th in today’s race, leaving him 17th overall, while Bennett is 109th in the general classification.
In the overall standings, Teuns remains first, after he won stage two yesterday, ahead of France’s Guillaume Martin and Kazakhstan’s Alexey Lutsenko in second and third.
Additional reporting by Paul Fennessy
The42 is on Instagram! Tap the button below on your phone to follow us!
Incredible finish. He was actually pulling away even though he went from so far out. His leadout man did suberbly. Thought he’d left it to late to bring him into position and then thought he left him go too early. Perfectly timed sprint.
@Brendan Heery: Shane Archibold joined the team recently, to do exactly this. Great to see it working.
Tragic that he’s not going to be in the tdf. Best form of any sprinter right now I reckon
Pity! Be great to have seen him outsprinting Sagan and da Guerilla Griepel.
@Bryn Capstan: He did beat Griepel (15th) yesterday…
Why did’nt his team select him?
@running man: they have another rider, Peter Sagan who is one of the best in the world. He’s currently out of form but he brings massive amounts of publicity to the team though as he’s probably one of the most famous and popular riders.