Skoda Tour de Luxembourg 2025 Stage 3

September 19, 2025 The Skoda Tour de Luxembourg will be won between today's difficult stage and tomorrow's ITT. After rolling out from Mertert, the first 89KM are North bound towards Clervaux with two KOM's along the way but on constantly undulating terrain. The heart of the stage is based around the finish circuit and the Montée de Niklosbierg, a 2.8KM climb at over 9%. The riders enter the circuit with 58KM to go and start the climb for the first time 6KM later. The Montée de Niklosbierg rises straight out of Vianden on cobbled streets, through the last houses in town, and up through the forest. The KOM sits alongside a reservoir at the top with a number of kilometers on the plateau before the descent to follow, down to the banks of the Our River and back into Vianden for another lap. There are three times up the Montée de Niklosbierg but after the last descent into Vianden, the course turns and climbs to the Citadel for 950M at 8%. In total, across the 170KM stage, the elevation gain accumulates to over 3,200M. A strong group of seven broke away early and built a lead of nearly 6 minutes but with 66KM to go, the gap was down to 3 minutes 30 seconds with EF-Education EasyPost pulling the peloton closer. The riders being chased were Silvan Dillier of Alpecin-Deceuninck, Simon Guglielmi of Arkéa-B&B Hotels, Thomas Gachignard of TotalEnergies, Ådne Holter of Uno-X Mobility, Victor Papon and Henri-François Renard-Haquin of Wagner-Bazin WB, and Joshua Gudnitz of ColoQuick. They started the Montée de Niklosbierg for the first time with 52KM to go and had 2 minutes on the bunch. A crash in the middle of the peloton on a left turn on to the climb split the group which reduced the peloton much more than the actual pace. The first attack came from Søren Kragh Andersen of Lidl-Trek. He was marked but a he managed to pull a group of around 15 riders away from the peloton which itself was down to around 40 riders. Soudal Quickstep had numbers and were happy to work but three riders from UAE-XRG didn't contribute which caused some consternation with more than a few. As poorly as the Kragh Andersen group was working, they did have nearly 1 minute on the peloton at the start of the second time up the Montée de Niklosbierg. Gachignard, Guglielmi, Holter, and Renard-Haquin were last remaining riders from the break. They started the Montée de Niklosbierg for the second time with 1 minute 20 seconds on the 15 rider chase group and 2 minutes 20 seconds on the Groupama-FDJ led peloton. When the peloton started the climb, Ben Healy of EF-Education EasyPost accelerated directly from the bottom. The peloton quickly trimmed down under the effort and before the top, Healy had dragged a group of 10 riders across to the 15 chasers who were now 1 minute down on the four leaders. The main man missing was race leader Romain Grégoire of Groupama-FDJ who realistically was too far behind at this point to come back. Healy blew up over the top and dropped off the favorites group but the effort successfully brought Richard Carapaz back into the mix. UAE-XRG stacked five riders in the group including the in-form Brandon McNulty. They went to the front en masse and carried on to the bottom of the Montée de Niklosbierg for the final time with a deficit to the break of just 15 seconds. Kragh Andersen took over on the cobbled section and put in a short but hard pull for Mattias Skjelmose. Kragh Andersen brought the break back and UAE-XRG resumed their pace setting. Rafal Majka reduced the group further to just McNulty, Carapaz, Mathys Rondel and Marco Brenner of Tudor Pro Cycling, Nicolas Prodhomme of Decathlon AG2R, Jordan Jegat of Total Energies, Toms Skujiņš of Lidl-Trek and Skjelmose who was dangling at the back. Brenner attacked 200M from the top which was covered by Skujiņš. No one got away but the attack did manage to briefly distance Majka. With no teammates in the front, the race got tactical but the group stalled just long enough for Majka to return and he set enough of a pace to discourage further attacks. Jhonatan Narváez was able to come back to the group as well with Marc Hirschi to give Tudor Pro Cycling and UAE-XRG three riders each in the front group. At the bottom along the Our River with 7KM to go, Hirschi attacked which forced UAE-XRG to respond. Hirschi held around 10 seconds into Vianden for the last uphill kilometer to the Citadel. Neither Majka or Skujiņš could make time on Hirschi so with 500M to go, McNulty went to the front to do the work for his own chances. Hirschi swung on to a rough cobbled road to the Citadel with 300M to go but McNulty was closing. The catch was made with 150M to go by McNulty and Skjelmose who were side by side. The Dane took the lead through the rampart gate at 100M from the line but Jegat was closing the gap quickly to Skjelmose and McNulty. Jegat passed McNulty and latched on to Skjelmose with 70M to go but the road was narrow and Skjelmose was able to hold his ground through the last corner to the line to take the victory in the center of the medieval castle. The disappointed figure of Jegat was second with McNulty in third at 2 seconds along with Narváez and Brenner in fourth and fifth. Skjelmose now leads the overall GC by 4 seconds to Jegat and 8 seconds to McNulty with the all-important ITT coming tomorrow.