Van Avermaet Wins Tour De Wallonie Third Stage

Last updated : 22 July 2013 By Covsupport News Service

BMC's Greg Van Avermaet, won the Tour De Wallonie Third Stage this afternoon.

A day of four categorised climbs in the Ardennes on the third 168.5km stage from Beaufays to Bastogne in the French speaking part of Southern Belgium.

117 riders from seventeen teams started the stage in glorious sunshine and it was Laurens De Vreese who won the first sprint before Trago Machado took the Col de Bonsgnée climb and Christophe Premont took the Cote De Filot climb.

There had been four in front but they were held up by a level crossing and De Vreese decided to go back to the yellow jersey group of Alexandr Kolobnev.

That left three riders including Stijn Steels and Premont out in front with Kevin Van Melsen and they took a 5.38 lead with 90kms remaining.

Forty kilometres further on, in La Roche en Ardenne came the next sprint and Steels took the points in front of good crowds.

Christophe Premont decided to attack with 42kms to go in a vein attempt to escape as the peloton were less than a minute away and was soon shut down before Trago Machedo took the climb La Côté de Berismenil.

Four riders then took over but were dealt with as the riders started on the le Mur Saint-Roch category one climb with 25kms to go. Daniel Oss and Steijn Devolder, who was eighteen seconds down on General Classifcation got past Kolobnev and they were joined by Machado, now the King of The Mountains leader, Devolder, the Belgian Champion took the points on the summit as Kolobnev dropped back into the peloton.

Peter Sierry of Omega Pharma Quick Step and Eijssen of BMC were 37 seconds clear going into the final ten kilometres.

They too were pulled back. Dries took over but it was BMC's Greg Van Avermaet, who won the sprint in a time of 4.16.00 ahead of van Ashbroeck, Drucker, Oss and Maertins.

Alexandr Kolobnev keeps his yellow jersey.