{"id":251643,"date":"2026-07-06T07:00:30","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T07:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/06\/the-inner-ring-tour-de-france-stage-3-preview-3\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T07:00:30","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T07:00:30","slug":"the-inner-ring-tour-de-france-stage-3-preview-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/06\/the-inner-ring-tour-de-france-stage-3-preview-3\/","title":{"rendered":"The Inner Ring | Tour de France Stage 3 Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A mountain stage of sorts but mainly gentle roads. The breakaway has a good chance and someone might be able to take the yellow jersey today and keep it for a while as long as UAE and Visma-LAB agree to it.<\/p>\n

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Cr\u00e8me de la cr\u00e8me catalane<\/strong>: the early break of Alex Molenaar (Caja Rural), Frank van den Broek (Picnic-PostNL) and Felix Engelhardt (Jayco) stayed clear to contest the intermediate sprint and the take the king of the mountains points available up the road.<\/p>\n

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It was surprising other teams didn\u2019t try to get involved but as a result local rider Molenaar gets the polka-dot jersey and Caja Rural achieve something that while modest could be more than other teams manage.<\/p>\n

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Isaac del Toro could have thought it wasn\u2019t his day when with 60km he had a mechanical and was left standing by the road when the lead UAE team car to drive past him. Then the second team car did the same, only to slam on the brakes and dispatch a mechanic back down the course for the Mexican who appeared to get help from the Visma and Ineos cars which isn\u2019t allowed under the rules (#2.3.029) but nobody spotted this and he avoided a hefty time penalty.<\/p>\n

Two minutes down from the wait, Del Toro chased and got back with plenty of time. Unlike Paul Seixas who punctured later and after taking a team mate\u2019s bike stopped to get a replacement and got back to the bunch as they hit the final circuit and had to move up the field during the first ascent of Montjuic but he was cool about it.<\/p>\n

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On the Monjuic circuit Brandon McNulty did a huge turn, pulling the peloton for two laps as many riders were ejected. Come the final time up and there were no attacks but few riders were left. Richard Carapaz and Mattias Skjelmose tried to sneak away on the descent but Isaac del Toro chased and carved the final corner to go clear. The likes of Jonas Vingegaard and Remco Evenepoel were marking Tadej Poga\u010dar and this allowed Del Toro to build on his lead before the sprint started. Poga\u010dar weaved on the road in a bid to distract the chase so Del Toro could win. This was a gift wrapped with a ribbon on top as Poga\u010dar could clearly have won, floating around while rivals were sprinting full pelt. Perhaps so used to winning, offering the win outwardly seemed to delight Poga\u010dar more than when he won Milan-Sanremo in March.<\/p>\n

The intensity of the efforts up Montjuic made this a a GC day. A front group of 16 riders at the finish spread across 10 seconds, only ten more riders within a minute. 11 more riders within two minutes and then in 38th place was Mathias Vacek over five minutes down.<\/p>\n

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The Route<\/strong>: 196km and 3,850m of vertical gain, this makes it a mountain stage.<\/p>\n