Eleonora Camilla Gasparrini of
UAE Team ADQ sprinted to victory in a thrilling finale to stage 3 of the
Tour de Suisse women.
Stage 3 from St Gallen to Ebnat-Kappel will be hilly, immediately kicking off with an ascent, but with an interesting finale. Summiting just a few kilometres before the finish, the climb to Ricken (7.1 kilometres at 3.9%) should see attacks and possibly the GC fight blowing up as many look to take back time lost on the time-trial.
With just over 40km to go a four-rider group containing Pauliena Rooijakkers (Canyon//SRAM Racing), Paula Andrea Patiño (Movistar Team), stage 1 winner, Kata Blanka Vas (Team SD Worx) and Eva van Agt (Team Jumbo-Visma).
Soon after, they were joined by another two riders, Julie Van de Velde and Urška Žigart. With 20km to go, they led the peloton by 55 seconds.
With just over 12km left Žigart attacked from the break and took maximum points on the final Queen of the Mountains climb of the day.
Meanwhile, a counter-attack from behind by Katarzyna Niewiadoma saw her quickly catch the remainder of the breakaway and set about chasing down Žigart.
With Niewiadoma caught, only Žigart remained clear of the peloton heading into the final 3km by just 12 seconds.
The gap remained roughly the same into the final kilometre. The peloton was undoubtedly closing though.
Finally in the final 100m, Žigart was caught as the sprints unloaded. In the end, Eleonora Gasparrini took the win ahead of Arlennis Sierra.
