Sam Welsford sprints to seventh Tour Down Under stage victory on stage 3
The Tour Down Under stage 3 was a brutal day that came down to the wire for a heroic breakaway effort. It was a mad dash to the line by the sprinters, with Sam Welsford (Ineos Grenadiers) taking the win for the first time with his new team. Welsford screamed with delight as he crossed the line victorious, before slumping to the floor and being congratulated by his teammates.
Welsford said, "I’m so lost for words. That was so hard, we were in so much trouble at the back, I was at my absolute limit on that last climb but Ben [Swift] was just with me saying we’ll get back, I'm so happy." This was his seventh Tour Down Under stage victory.
The race unfolded with a long neutral zone, followed by an immediate attack from Enzo Paleni (Groupama-FDJ United), Baptiste Veistroffer (Lotto-Intermarche) and Martin Urianstad (Uno-X Mobility). The peloton sat up to allow the trio to go up the road, and they quickly got over a two-minute gap.
The break was tested on the first climb of the day, Wickham Hill, with Urianstad rolling across the KOM line to take the 10 points. Behind him were Veistroffer and Paleni, with Lucas Hamilton (Ineos Grenadiers) mopping up the final couple of points from the peloton two minutes later.
The break continued to push hard, holding their advantage and even extending it as Ineos Grenadiers and Visma-Lease a Bike retook control of the peloton. With just over 20km to go, Urianstad started to struggle with the power of Paleni and Veistroffer, who had been in the breakaway for three days in a row.
The peloton was stringing out into the final 60km, with attacks coming from Rudy Porter (Jayco-AlUla) and others. However, the break held their advantage and extended it as the peloton struggled to close the gap.
In the final 30km, the break really started pushing the pace heading onto the final categorised climb of the day, Mount Barker. They managed to drag their advantage back above a minute again. Behind, there was an attack by Titouan Fontaine (Groupama-FDJ United) through a feed zone.
Veistroffer and Paleni continued to hold about 40” of a gap over the peloton, which was still lined up in team color order. However, Veistroffer lost touch on the final little kicker but gave his all with Paleni. The time gap disappeared over the climb, and Veistroffer got caught by the bunch led by NSN and Visma-Lease a Bike.
Paleni held on all the way until 500 meters to go where the sprinters' teams finally took over. Ineos Grenadiers flew down the right-hand side of the peloton with Michal Kwiatkowski and Swift dragging Welsford through to the front. When Welsford launched, there was no stopping him as he powered to victory with Bower following the slipstream. The Dane Tord Gudmestad (Decathlon-CMA CGM) took second, and the New Zealander took third.
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