DISCUSSION Tour de Suisse Stage 3 | What are UAE's tactics in Suisse?

The third stage of the Tour de Suisse was another day with a hilltop finish in which puncheurs and GC riders were expected to fight for the victory.

Similarly to stage 2, the first half of the day was essentially flat, with all the categorized climbs gathered in the second half. Six riders went up the road and formed the breakaway of the day, with Nans Peters and Quinn Simmons as the top names.

Inside the last 50km, Geraint Thomas hit the deck while in the middle of the peloton, miraculously not causing anyone else to fall in the process. Although he looked in pain, he continued the race and tried to rejoin the peloton with the help of three teammates, although in vain.

The final sequence of climbs caused the gap of the break to decrease to exiguous 20 seconds, making it look like the winner should be in peloton. However, Quinn Simmons didn’t want to give up too easily, launching a big attack and flying away from his five breakaway companions.

The US national champion proved he is in terrific shape, outpacing the peloton and taking home an impressive solo win. João Almeida and Oscar Onley completed the podium after a tight sprint.

Once the stage finished, we asked some of our writers to share their thoughts and main takeaways about what happened today.

IMPRESSIVE performance by Quinn Simmons. We could talk about the lack of understanding in the peloton and that the riders have preferred to attack rather than agree to organize and hunt down the American, but I think it's a day to congratulate and take off our hats to what this 24-year-old rider has done.

Simmons has shown that he has the depth to make it big in major world-class races. He has withstood all the onslaughts that have come his way. When he attacked, the leading group was being hunted down. He increased the gap and held it until the end with a hard and complicated course. Congratulations Mr. Simmons!

Impressive display from Quinn Simmons. 193 kilometres on the run, to raise his arms with the US national champion's jersey and honour the memory of Gino Mader. It's clear that Groupama-FDJ doesn't have the team to control the peloton, a breakaway and Romain Grégoire is only wearing yellow because his rivals are waiting for the course to harden. It's a bore watching FDJ control the head of the peloton.

Today the breakaway got its revenge because FDJ and the main teams wanted it to. If the yellow jersey was on the body of a UAE, Visma, Lidl... the pace of the race would be very different. Tactically, none of them want to take over the race. Even Ben O'Connor and Jayco don't want to. They're all looking at one man. João Almeida.

But João Almeida needs to do what he did last year in the Tour de France. Tug on the ears and punch the table, especially his team-mate Jan Christen. I don't think the Swiss cyclist has any respect for his team-mates.

Yesterday it was Mikel Bjerg who was amazed by his team-mate's good legs at the end... but he was amazed that during the stage he didn't work. What about today's stage? I saw him attacking again when João Almeida was badly positioned on the climb to the finish line. He doesn't work and attacks at the most inopportune moments. He does what he wants because he's egotistical and has a huge ego, he lacks humility.

Great ride by Quinn Simmons! Very few could have expected the break to succeed after being in front the whole day and barely holding a 20-second lead at some point. Third win for the American this season, he is knocking at the door of the team to ask for a spot at the Tour de France.

João Almeida proved he is in great shape as expected, launching a timely sprint and beating riders such as Romain Grégoire, who should be way more explosive and have a faster sprint than the Portuguese on paper.

Today wasn’t even a day suiting Almeida, who prefers the high mountains and longer efforts instead of short and explosive ones, yet he beat everyone else in the group. He could have most likely stolen some seconds off the leader and some other GC contenders if the team had worked for him, but that never happened. It is becoming ridiculous, they have come to the Tour de Suisse with the outright favourite to win the GC, but they have not behaved as a team yet.

After a disastrous first stage in which peloton allowed a huge group with a few potential GC contenders to gain more than 2 minutes, UAE doesn’t have the luxury to give up opportunities to recover some time, and today could have been one of them. There are not proper high mountain stages this edition, so it won't be as easy for Almeida to unleash his full power.

Jan Christen rode selfishly for the second consecutive day. Who knows whether his move was planned and agreed with the team beforehand, but the timing couldn’t have been worse. He attacked when Almeida was not in a good position in the bunch. What was the point of that?

He could have provoked a cut that affected his leader at a crucial moment of the stage. And all that after ignoring the team orders yesterday. As arguably the best domestique climber that is present in the race to help Almeida, he should be behaving as such. But it seems the word domestique is not in his vocabulary. Maybe he went to the same school as Juan Ayuso.

UAE keeps making clear that not everyone in the team is riding for the common goal, which should be helping Almeida win the GC. Instead, they are just running around like a headless chicken. Poor João.