Milan Fretin wins Tour of Guangxi stage 3 as Magnier unclips in sprint

Milan Fretin (Cofidis) won stage 3 of the Tour of Guangxi in Bama, taking the bunch sprint after 211 kilometres from Jingxi.

Biesterbos (Team Picnic PostNL) was second, a day after his own maiden professional win, with Meeus (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe) third. Fabio Jakobsen, Arvid de Kleijn, Juan Sebastián Molano, Joshua Giddings, Erlend Blikra, Brady Gilmore and Cyril Barthe completed the top ten.

Race leader Paul Magnier had a mechanical problem in the closing metres, unclipping his pedal as he seemed set to win. The Soudal Quick-Step rider had won stage 1 and finished second on stage 2.

Jasha Sütterlin (Team Jayco AlUla) and Julius Johansen (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) went clear early during the stage before Tobias Bayer (Alpecin-Premier Tech) and Wang Ruidong (China) bridged across. Johansen sat up with 182 kilometres remaining.

Sütterlin took the first intermediate sprint at Desheng from Max Kanter and Jhonatan Narváez. Bayer won the second at Tiandong, and took maximum points at the final KOM sprint with 23 kilometres to go.

Wang took the KOM sprint at 149.5 kilometres before being dropped and caught with 19 kilometres left. Bayer was reeled in at 23, Sütterlin at 25.

Soudal Quick-Step, Decathlon CMA CGM, XDS Astana and Lotto Intermarché shared the chase through the second half of the stage, with Movistar also on the front inside the final 15 kilometres.

Bahrain-Victorious came to the front with three riders inside the last 2.3 kilometres and Soudal with three at 2.7. Laurenz Rex led for Soudal inside the final 600 metres, with Kanter in second position at 1.3 kilometres.

Molano opened the sprint 400 metres out. Fretin came past him on the other side of the road as Magnier suffered a mechanical inside the closing kilometres.