Visma wins the team time trial of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Tour and Alex Baudin remains the leader

The Dutch team Visma | Lease a Bike (32:52)with Matteo Jorgenson at the helm, was the fastest in the third stage of the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, the 28.4-kilometer team time trial, starting and finishing in the town of Perreux, which this Tuesday took over the formerly called Dauphiné.

Second place went to the British team Netcompany INEOS (33:01)who had won the Paris-Nice team time trial and finished with Oscar Onley and Kévin Vauquelin in the same time. Third was the EF Education – EasyPost (33:21)29 seconds behind the stage winners, enough for Alex Baudin to retain the overall lead.

This type of stage, which has not been held in the race previously known as Dauphiné since 2018, will be the one that opens fire in the Tour de France next July, so the teams were with all their swords raised in the last dress rehearsal.

The first to start (Picnic PostNL, Lotto, NSN and Jayco AlUla) successively took away the best provisional time.

The next threat came in the form of a UAE Team Emirates who took the exit very early. They shined at the first time control, but gave up the lead at the second. The partial records of the Emirati team were surpassed, one by one, by Movistar Teamand it was also faster Lidl-Trek by Juan Ayuso in the first time controls. Isaac del Toro, national time trial champion of Mexico, was in charge of finishing off the attempt of the UAEbut was not able to improve the time of the Jayco AlUla.

Movistar came to lead

Then, the changes of provisional leader began to happen. He Movistar (33:44) He occupied the seats corresponding to the best time for a few minutes, until he reached the finish line andl Lidl-Trek, with Juan Ayuso and Mattias Skjelmose crossing the line at the same time (33:24).

INEOSwho was already the strongest in the intermediate controls, left Oscar Onley, whose team had had to wait for him, and Kévin Vauquelin for the last meters. The English duo also reached the finish line at the same time, with a time of 33:0123 seconds better than Lidl-Trek.

However, there was still one more change of leader. He Vismawho had faltered at the beginning of the stage, due to Ben Tulett’s mechanical problems and the fact that Wout van Aert dropped too earlyit went from less to more. Matteo Jorgenson He finished the job on the final climb almost ten seconds faster than INEOS (32:52).

He sneaked onto the podium at the last minute EF Education – EasyPost (33:21) of the still race leader Alex Baudin. He himself put the finishing touch to his team’s work, and saved enough seconds to continue wearing the yellow jersey. His team finished 29 seconds behind Visma, so his 32-second lead overall was enough.

The fourth stage of this Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, scheduled for this Wednesday between Le Puy-en-Velay and Montrond-les-Bains, It resembles, in its first part, the first two. The initial 130 kilometers include up to six second, third and fourth category scoring climbs, while the remaining 37 are almost entirely flat, an ideal finish for the sprinters who have managed to arrive with the leading group.