Lidl Deutschland Tour 2025 Stage 3

August 23, 2025 Yesterday ended up being more selective than most people had imagined and today could be the same. The race leaves Arnsberg to head East towards the Möhnesee and on to Kassel for the finish after 175KM. There are three categorized climbs, the first of which is the 1,300M Hirschberger Wand with gradients reaching an incredible 30%. The final categorized climb is the Buttenberg, halfway through the stage, 2.6KM at 7.5% and is the highest point in this year's Deutschland Tour. After leaving North Rhine-Westphalia shortly after the Buttenberg, the race enters Hessen for the rest of the day. It's a more tame second half but there are bumps along the way and the bonus sprint which comes just 3KM before the finish in Kassel which could shake things up. Three riders got up the road from the start including Marco Haller of Tudor Pro Cycling, Jannik Steimle of Q36.5, and Enzo Leijnse of Picnic-Post NL. The first part of the stage was very aggressive but with 110KM to go, the race had settled and UAE-XRG were setting the pace in the slightly reduced peloton, 2 minutes 15 seconds behind the leaders. The gap was down to 90 seconds with 91KM to go at the start of the Buttenberg climb. UAE-XRG continued to ride hard on the climb and it wasn't long before Jonathan Milan of Lidl-Trek started to drop. He had a number of teammates surrounding him but the road got steep in the last kilometer and the peloton was getting very small. By the time Leijnse led the break over the top, the gap was just 15 seconds to the bunch which wasn't much more than 35 riders. With 81.5KM to go, Visma-Lease a Bike were riding hard off the descent of the Buttenberg and caught the original break. The Milan group was signaled at 90 seconds behind so it was in the Dutch team's interest to put him out of contention for the stage win. The front group was still pushing on and with 69KM to go, the gap to Milan was still over 90 seconds and they decided to pull the plug and sit up to save energy for the final stage tomorrow. Brandon McNulty of UAE-XRG and Steven Kruijswijk of Visma-Lease a Bike did the bulk of the work to drive the peloton. The kilometers ticked by as the reduced bunch continued riding through cut wheat fields and small timber frame villages. Leijnse hung in the group after being in the original break and he rolled the dice and went on the attack again with 18KM to go before entering the town of Dörnberg. McNulty stitched the group back together but everyone looked like they were on their last legs. The speed ramped up with 8KM to go on the approach to the bonus sprint in the neighborhood of Tannenwäldchen within the Kassel city limits. Tudor Pro Cycling and Israel-Premier Tech were driving the pace into the sprint but race leader Søren Wærenskjold of Uno-X Mobility and Jhonatan Narváez of UAE-XRG came over the top and went for the line. Wærenskjold looked like he would have it comfortably but Narváez held his sprint and got the 3 seconds with Wærenskjold taking 2 seconds which put them level on time in the GC. Wout van Aert did the ultimate team job and went to the front to control counter attacks to keep things together for his sprinter Matthew Brennan. Van Aert did a massive turn and only pulled off with 225M to go. Wærenskjold was in second wheel and started his sprint with Danny van Poppel of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe and Brennan sitting just behind. Van Poppel sprinted out of the slipstream but he felt Brennan come up on his right and swung over to block the Brit. Brennan was forced to move to his right which impeded Wærenskjold. Van Poppel hit the line first with Wærenskjold in second and Emilien Jeannière of TotalEnergies in third. Brennan remonstrated, throwing his hands in the air and drifted across the line in eighth place. As expected, the jury looked at van Poppel's sprint and relegated him to last in the group which gave Wærenskjold the win and moved everyone else up a place, resulting in Sam Watson of Ineos taking third. The relegation also had a significant impact on the GC because the win for Wærenskjold gave him 10 bonus seconds which is a much more comfortable margin over Narváez with one day flat day remaining.