Gaudu edges Pedersen after daring dive into final corner on Vuelta stage 3

David Gaudu took a remarkable stage victory at the Vuelta a España on Monday, out-sprinting Mads Pedersen.

The Groupama-FDJ rider rode underneath the Danish rider into the final hairpin bend, around 50m from the line, out-sprinting his Lidl-Trek rival to take the surprise victory. The final kilometre had an average gradient approaching 5%, and, with the last of three tight hairpin bends only 50m from the line making for a technical final where positioning was essential.

Gaudu realised this, coming into contention late in the piece, then taking the tightest line before opening his sprint. Jonas Vingegaard (Visma | Lease a Bike) finished third on the stage and remains in the overall lead, and is on the same time as Gaudu..

Lidl-Trek rode a brilliant race, riding on the front of the peloton all day, upping the pace when they were able to pressure the pure sprinters and ahead of the day’s intermediate sprint, where Pedersen took what points the breakaway left them. However, they reckoned without Gaudu in the final, Pedersen unable to take advantage of his team mates’ work.

Stage three, between San Maurizio Canavese and Ceres was the last of the three to be held entirely in Italy, and, after Sunday’s medium mountain day and the opening sprint day, Monday was one for the puncheurs.

At close to 2,000m there was more climbing over the day’s 134.6km than on stage two, but the gradients on the technical final were nowhere near those of the day before, when Jonas Vingegaard (Visma | Lease a Bike) won and took the leader’s red jersey.

There was a brief but fierce battle for the breakaway before Sean Quinn (EF Education-EasyPost), Patrick Gamper (Jayco-AlUla), Luca Van Boven (Intermarché-Wanty) and king of the mountains Alessandro Verre (Arkea-B&B Hotels) got away, quickly taking more than a minute before Lidl-Trek headed to the front of the peloton to control.

With 100km to go the American squad had allowed the breakaway’s lead to settle at around 1:30, where it remained until the bottom of the day’s classified climb to Issiglio, where an extra minute was permitted.

With 5km of the climb to go Verre upped the pace, first dropping Gamper then Van Boven, eventually cresting the climb first and taking maximum king of the mountains points, the peloton at 2:02 with 68km remaining. Twenty kilometres later the lead was as low as 1:20, Lidl-Trek keeping the breakaway on a tight leash.

With the gap below one minute and 38km to go, Quinn dropped Verre on a short climb, the former US champion heading on alone, the bunch closing in fast. Quinn was eventually caught just after passing the 20km to go marker, the pace lifting on the long gradual ascent towards the finish. As the peloton approached Ceres the pace lifted inexorably, Visma | Lease a Bike, Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale, UAE Team Emirates-XRG, Movistar and Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe all constantly jostling for the position.