Skoda Tour de Luxembourg 2024 Stage 3

September 20, 2024 Day 3 offers up the Queen stage. At just over 200KM long with 4000M of elevation, there will be plenty of opportunities to make the difference in GC and also put some hard racing in the legs for the final key appointments of the season. Johannes Kulset of Uno-X Mobility and Louis Vervaeke of Soudal Quickstep had 6 minutes at one point but action in the peloton saw Amanuel Ghebreigzabhier of Lidl-Trek and Bastien Tronchon of Decathlon AG2R attack. They bridged up to the leaders with 56KM to go and a gap of around 2 minutes. The break hit the first ascent of three of the Montée de Haemerich at 31.8KM to go and reduced gap of just 1 minute. Felix Großschartner of UAE was the only one to make a move on the climb. He went over the top about 10 seconds behind the four leaders and ten seconds ahead of the rest of the peloton. Großschartner joined the front with 27KM to go just as Kulset was dropped. Andreas Kron of Lotto-Dstny, Mauri Vansevenant of Soudal Quickstep, and Davide Piganzoli of Polti-Kometa were next to bridge on the first climb of the circuit which made the group that much more dangerous. Wilco Kelderman of Visma-Lease a Bike leapt from the bunch with Mathieu van der Poel of Alpecin-Deceuninck jumping next. That move was marked by the rest of the peloton and it all came back together with 25KM to go. Vansevenant and Davide Formolo of Movistar were next to go, just before they turned right onto the steep 1KM climb of Montée de la Seitert, the second climb on the circuit. Nicolas Prodhomme of Decathlon AG2R, Bob Jungles of the Luxembourg National Team, and Bart Lemmen of Visma-Lease a Bike went clear and were 20 seconds behind the two leaders and 35 seconds ahead of the peloton as they hit the Montée de Haemerich for the second time with 18.5KM to go. Jungles couldn't keep pace and dropped with 13KM to go but was replaced by David Gaudu of Groupama-FDJ who made it up to the second group. The peloton could not organize a chase and it was a constant start stop. Van der Poel and Marc Hirschi of UAE separated themselves from the rest of the bunch on the Montée de la Seitert with 7KM to go. On the final climb, Vansevenant attacked at the 4KM banner and got away from Formolo. Behind, Quinn Simmons of Lidl-Trek did a great ride to bridge to Van der Poel and Hirschi but he got there as they hit the steepest slopes. Hirschi bounced away and quickly caught and passed the Lemmen group. Van der Poel clawed his way up to Hirschi right at the top of the climb to save his GC ambitions. Vansevenant crossed the line solo 18 seconds ahead of Formolo. Van der Poel led an enlarged group of around 20 riders in for third and took the 4 seconds for third place. After the stage, the Jury not only relegated Formolo but removed him from the race for using the super-tuck position which moved van der Poel into second place. Vansevenant now leads the GC by 32 seconds on van der Poel and 45 to Hirschi with an individual time trial tomorrow and another challenging stage on Sunday to come.