Quinn Simmons claims spirited solo victory on stage 3 of the Tour de Suisse

Quinn Simmons (Lidl-Trek) took a fine solo victory on stage 3 of the Tour de Suisse in Heiden after he attacked from the break of the day on the climb of Knolhusen with 20km remaining.

The American had half a minute in hand on the peloton on the short, sharp ascent of Büriswilen in the finale and he battled gamely to retain that advantage at the summit. He managed his effort smartly on the long, undulating drag towards the finish to claim his third win of the season.

The peloton closed to within 18 seconds in the finale, with João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) taking second place ahead of Oscar Onley (Picnic-PostNL). Romain Gregoire (Groupama-FDJ) placed fourth to retain the overall lead. The Frenchman is 25 seconds clear of compatriot Kevin Vauquelin (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) and 27 ahead of Bart Lemmen (Visma | Lease a Bike).

Simmons was part of an initial move of six riders that forged clear early in the stage, but the escapees never had a lead of much more than two minutes, and the afternoon looked set to finish a shoot-out between the overall contenders for stage honours.

When Simmons punched clear of the break with 20km to go, the gap was barely 40 seconds, but he put up remarkable resistance over a stop-start peloton to maintain the bulk of that buffer into the final kilometre.

“To be honest in the beginning when there was only six of us, I was doubting a little bit but the motivation was high,” said Simmons, who dedicated his victory to the late Gino Mäder, whose anniversary was on Monday. 

“I wanted to win yesterday for the two-year anniversary of losing Gino. I really wanted to win and dedicate that to him. I’m doing it a day late. It’s really hard to here again, especially seeing his mom at the start but I can pay a bit of tribute. For such I had extra motivation today.”

The Tour de Suisse has defied prediction thus far and it followed a similar template on day three with an early escapee defying the odds to claim stage victory. A flurry of early attacks led to the formation of the day’s early move, with Simmons safely aboard, but the American confessed he would have preferred more company for the road.

No matter, Simmons Nans Peters (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), Max Walker (EF Education-EasyPost), Emiel Verstrynge (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Brent Van Moer (Lotto) and Samuele Battistella (EF Education-EasyPost) combined smoothly and established an advantage, though the peloton never granted them much leeway, with a maximum lead of 2:40.

There were some jitters in the bunch with a number of crashes. The first major spill saw James Knox (Soudal-QuickStep) forced to abandon, while Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) came down in another crash with 60km to go.

The Welshman remounted and gave chase, but he was unable to rejoin the peloton and he eventually finished the day more than 15 minutes down, rolling home alongside former teammate Chris Froome.

The day’s principal difficulties came in the finale, and as the peloton began to close inexorably in on the remaining escapees, the break’s chances of success looked slim. Simmons had been the main driver of the move all day, and he opted to strike out alone with 20km to go on the climb of Knolhusen, when the break’s lead was cut to within 30 seconds.

Simmons would extend that advantage to 38 seconds on the run-in to the final climb of Büriswilen, and he would maintain most of that buffer at the top. Behind, there was a staccato rhythm to proceedings, with Jan Christen (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) attacking with force and then relenting.

Simmons’ teammate Juan Pedro López made an ambitious attempt to bridge across alone, and when he was brought to heel, Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost) tried his luck over the other side.

Out in front, meanwhile, Simmons stuck to his task, and he seemed all but assured of victory by the time he tackled the final undulations before the finish. The pre-race favourite Almeida won the sprint for second place to pick up six bonus seconds, but he knows he has work to do to get back in the GC hunt after losing three minutes on the opening day. “I gave it my best, it’s one less day in the books,” he said. “It is what it is.”