Defending Tour de France champion Egan Bernal on Monday marked out his territory by climbing to a summit finish victory on stage 3 of the Route d’Occitanie.
Bernal’s Ineos teammate Pavel Sivakov was second at 10 seconds with Team Astana’s Aleksandr Vlasov, while Chris Froome trailed home five minutes adrift less than a month ahead of the rescheduled Tour.
The Colombian punched the air joyously as he soloed over the finish line to rapturous applause from the fans, who had defied a traffic ban by walking or cycling to the mountain summit finale.
Photo: AFP
Bernal also clinched the overall lead of the four-day race, on a stage typical of those found on the Tour with about 40km of difficult climbs.
“The team did a really good lead out and I attacked in the last part of the climb,” said Bernal, who then tipped one of his teammates to ride his debut Tour. “It was practically just two Team Ineos riders at the end.”
“Pavel was impressive,” Bernal added. “He has improved his level a lot since last season and he will be a key rider in the Tour de France.”
A household name in his homeland since winning last year’s Tour, Bernal warmed up for that by taking the overall victory in the Paris-Nice and Tour de Suisse, and seems to be the favorite to win this season’s race.
“This is a test day for all the favorites of the Tour,” France’s Thibaut Pinot said ahead of the stage in which he finished fourth, 31 seconds behind the 23-year-old winner.
“I’m more than happy with my climb,” said Pinot, who was welcomed at the summit by a huge cheer from the fans.
French climber Romain Bardet, who fell heavily on Sunday, was 1 minute, 18 seconds off the winner.
After negotiating the narrow lanes in the Pyrenean foothills, the race went up the 10km of the Col de Peyresourde at an average grade of 7.5 percent, then ascended the slightly longer Col de Beyrede at a 7.2 percent grade.
Die-hard cyclo-tourists and those fit enough to go up on foot had defied the 24-hour traffic ban on the day’s final climb.
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