Irish rider Leo Doyle will wear the climbers' classification leader's jersey going into the final stage of the Tour of Serbia (2.2) tomorrow, Saturday,
The 21-year-old is riding the four-stage race with Austrian elite team ARBÖ headstart ON-Fahrrad and went on the attack on the queen stage today, collecting climbers points before being recaptured by a chasing group.
The 153km race from Čačak to Prijepolje featured four categorised climbs, the first of which was just over 12km with an average gradient 5.8 per cent.
While the breakaway got clear early in the stage, Doyle managed to bridge across to it before the first major climb began. Shorty after the road kicked up Doyle and two others from the breakaway pulled clear of the others in the group.
Around halfway up the climb the three leaders had a gap of three minutes, with Doyle then getting clear on his own as the German Bike Aid Continental team was chasing behind.
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When Doyle crested the climb and raced down the descent he was joined by others from the original breakaway. They were caught by two of the Bike Aid riders on the next climb, of 4km.
Once onto that climb, Doyle pulled clear with the two Bike Aid riders - Dawit Yemane and Adne van Engelen - who then attacked him and distanced him on the third climb of the day.
While he was third rider on the road, with over 2:30 in hand on the chasers, Doyle was still around 45km from the finish and riding into a headwind. He was eventually caught by a chasing group and finished in 29th, with Yemane and Engelen finishing 1st and 2nd and almost five minutes clear of the next riders home.
Thanks to the climbers points he collected today, Doyle will wear the classification leader's jersey on tomorrow's stage 4 as the leader of the classification, and today's stage winner, Yemane is in the yellow jersey.
Doyle finished 14th on the 152.6km opening stage on Wednesday and was 18th on the 153.8km stage 2 yesterday. He is now 24th overall going into the final stage.
