Good morning to our beloved regular viewers, and welcome to the third stage of the Tour of Bulgaria. After yesterday's time trial, in which König took the lead, we're now back to stage 1's recipe: A stage with three mountains and an uphill finish. The only difference is that this stage is a little bit shorter, with 158 kilometres. As a neutral fan we hopefully won't see the “mass sprint” finish we had in stage 1, though.
Pomoshnikov, Kiserlovski, Ratiy and König are once again the main favourites. Let's see how this one will work out.
First attack of the day by:
Hindley Nakane (GC #42, +4'18) Stybar Partridge
But especially: Parra Bustamente! The Colombian is ranked #20 in the GC, only 1'16 behind leader König. Surely Valio won't enjoy letting him go?
It does look like the peloton will let them go, though the group has completely fallen apart at the top of the climb. Parra Bustamente takes the KoM points in front of Nakane. Stybar should be able to come back on the downhill, but Partridge and Hindley might have more trouble – they are a minute behind Stybar, and only 40 seconds in front of the pack.
Though after the downhill, the five come back together and quickly get a two-minute gap. Just for clarity, here are the names once again:
Hindley Nakane (GC #42, +4'18) Stybar Partridge
and Parra Bustamente. (GC #20, +1'16)
As expected, Valio and especially Paajanen is keeping the gap relatively low. As the riders are nearing the second climb, the gap is around 3 minutes.
On top of this second climb, Nakane takes the second KoM sprint while Parra Bustamente seems to save his energy for the final climb. Stybar can be seen hanging on behind them and will once again try to return on the downhill. 3 minutes Behind them is the peloton. This means the other escapees have been swollen up.
There's a small cat 3-climb before the final climb, which doesn't look that exciting. But Kiserlovski decided to test the other riders, and made a little 8-second gap with the pack. It doesn't really look like an attack, more like a way to check the other riders' legs, but we'll see if he keeps going.
Pomoshnikov is leading the pack, trying to close the gap.
Nakane takes the 6 points on this climb, but Kiserlovski's attack made the peloton get a lot closer: 1'19 now. It looks like this attack won't last, which could become bad news for Parra Bustamente's GC.
As we can see Nakane getting caught by the peloton (including Kiserlovski) in the background, with six kilometres to go, we have our first rider dropping. It's Hirschlein, GC's 13th, who decided to let the peloton go. No big deal for Andorra most likely, but still a setback for him.
3,4 kilometres to go, and it's once again Kiserlovski setting a very high pace. Panayotov and Pomoshnikov are trying to make sure he doesn't get away.
On the left, we can see Lehtinen keeping a steady pace for König. Where have we seen this before?
Many riders took turns trying to close the gap between the peloton and Kiserlovski, including Medvedev, Cataldo and finally, Lehtinen. But as Lehtinen decides to give up, Kiserlovski quickly manages to get a gap. 21 seconds with 2,1 kilometres to go!
And if we look back at the peloton, we can see why Lehtinen suddenly stopped with his pace, as König is in trouble! The GC leader quickly needs to find some fresh legs, or his GC might be in shambles. Other top 10-riders are are in the same situation as him are Kennaugh, Domagalski and Herrada.
Lehtinen falling back caused Medvedev and Cataldo to get a small gap of 12 seconds to the peloton. Immediately however, Lehtinen attacks again. Did König allow him to do so?
Behind them, the pack is being led by Sepulveda, Roe and Pomoshnikov.
Much, more more behind, we can see Ratiy struggling heavily. So far away that there wasn't even a camera with him. He's in a group with Parra Bustamente, 1,5 minutes behind Kiserlovski. A very bad day from him.
One kilometre to go for Kiserlovski and Cataldo and Medvedev almost reach him! There's only 8 seconds between them now. Behind them, there's a group that is being monitored as a 26-second peloton, though the group seems to be quite broken apart from now. But this means there's still hope for the aforementioned riders having a bad day to keep the time gaps low.
500 metres and it looks like Kiserlovski has just enough energy left to keep the chasers behind them. The peloton, led by Sepulveda doesn't seem to want to do much and is cruising to the finish line. Even Ratiy is getting closer to them!
With 100 metres to go, Kiserlovski is already convinced of his victory. And rightfully so! He takes the third stage of the Tour of Bulgaria, and is looking to get very high in the GC.
Medvedev and Cataldo finish second and third, 10 seconds behind the winner. Both had over a minute to make up to König, so the time gain will be very welcome to them.
Sepulveda, Herrada, Quintana and Kennaugh were the only ones with a lot of energy left from the main group and finish 4th-7h respectively. All between 1'16 and 1'22 behind Kiserlovski. Quite surprising from Herrada and Kennaugh especially, as they were far behind before. I guess they kept their own pace on the climb very well!
Kulhavy and Roe complete finish 8th and 9th, in front of the main group. Lewis takes 10th.
18 riders finish in the main group, either 2'04 or 2'28 behind Kiserlovski. Including König in 25th, who will be very happy that he gets the time of the #18 as it could've been much more.
Diaz and Ratiy finish around 4 minutes behind. It's clear that Diaz waited for Ratiy once again. It's a shame we don't see him riding for himself after his very good TT.
Time to watch today's winner celebrate: Kiserlovski!
And the GC certainly had a massive shakeup, too. Kiserlovski leads quite comfortably, 54 seconds in front of Cataldo and 1'16 in front of Sepulveda. Medvedev also jumped to 4th out of nowhere.
Further behind, we can see that König is only 10th, Pomoshnikov is 13th and Ratiy closes the top 20. Certainly not the race of the big favourites so far, unless your name is Kiserlovski of course!
Parra Bustamente gets rewarded for his failed breakaway coup and takes the KoM jersey by 1 point off Lindau! Though this ranking hasn't been settled yet, that's for sure.
And that's all for now. If you're tired from watching this stage there's some good news for you: Tomorrow's stage is only 74 kilometres long, so you can recover then. Goodbye for now!
Tour of Bulgaria – Stage 3
