Tour of Guangxi 2024 Stage 3

October 17, 2024 The riders set off for the longest stage of this years race at 214KM. The racing would be stopped just 25KM from the start however due to a crash that split the race in half. A number of riders were forced to abandon as a result. Racing would resume and Dries De Bondt of Decathlon AG2R and Pepijn Reinderink of Soudal-Quickstep would get up the road to form the break. They held a gap of 3 minutes 30 seconds with 53KM to go. UAE set up the chase and had the gap down to 90 seconds with 25KM to go. The group was put under pressure by the pace and would periodically split and come back together as they went up and back down the rolling roads. Reinderink left De Bondt with 13KM to go but the peloton were on him, just 20 seconds back. He was finally reeled in at 6.5KM from the line as teams were organizing for a likely bunch sprint. Bahrain-Victorious led through the final corner at 800M to go but the road was false flat uphill and they were overtaken by Israel-Premier Tech. The road gently swung to the left and there were two Israel-Premier Tech riders at the front. Juan Sebastián Molano of UAE came through the inside and threw his bike forward as he hit the line. It wasn't enough though as Ethan Vernon stomped the final five pedal strokes, closed the gap and won the stage. Vernon's teammate, Riley Pickrell, finished just behind Molano to take third place. Vernon leap-frogged Max Kanter to take the overall lead with Molano in second on the same time.