Ireland's Matt Teggart on the podium for a second day at the Tour of Britain, this time in Bristol (Photo by Simon Wilkinson-SWpix.com, homepage photo by Cassandra Donne)
Teggart retains sprints jersey, Alaphilippe wins in Britain
Ireland's Matt Teggart is still in the intermediate sprints jersey at the end of stage 3 in the Tour of Britain.
His Team Wiggins team mate and compatriot Mark Downey put in a strong ride today to finish in the whittled down peloton.
Such was the pace and the lumpy route today that the field was down to just 40. Downey was on the wrong side of a small split at the very end, losing six seconds.
However, that he survived all the way in such a small peloton was a very strong ride.
Teggart's defence of his sprints jersey was aided when some of the general classification men mopped up the points and bonus seconds in the first two sprints today; after 17.9km and 64.5km.
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And at the third sprint the second decent escape of the day was clear, with all three placings going to them.
? @eisbergwine Sprints Jersey: @matthew_teggart (@OfficialWIGGINS)#OVOToB pic.twitter.com/9u5wWaNbnB
— Tour of Britain ?? (@TourofBritain) September 4, 2018
The way the stage panned out, the sprints points were shared by eight different riders, none of whom among those closest to Teggart in the competition.
He had taken maximum points at all three sprint points on stage 2. And he is still top on nine points.
Matthew Bostock (Great Britain) is next on 7 points. Next is yesterday's breakaway man, who would lose the race lead today, Alessandro Tonelli (Bardiani CSF) with five points.
Teggart will very likely need to score more points if he is to win the classification. And getting clear in another breakaway would be his best way of achieving that.
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Today the stage was won in a sprint from a much reduced peloton by Julian Alaphilippe (QuickStep).
He triumphed after the second move of the day was caught with only 9km remaining having been clear for about 40km.
In that breakaway were: Tony Martin (Katusha-Alpecin), Ben Swift (Great Britain), Jon Mould (JLT-Condor) and Angelo Tulik (Direct Energie).
Alaphilippe wins the stage. Teggart in the red jersey with Team Wiggins; Downey on far right.
However, with the race featuring some very lumpy terrain on the short but brutal 127km stage starting and finishing in Bristol, it was a day for the strongest men.
With two climbs on the run-in, the sprint was one for the freshest of the strongest men rather than pure sprinters.
And having had a lead-out from team mate Bob Jungels, Tour de France king of the mountains Alaphilippe won.
He just edged out Patrick Bevin; the BMC Racing man doing enough to take the race lead on time bonuses.
He had also been 2nd over the line at the first intermediate prime of the day and so took two seconds there.
ONE Pro Cycling's Emīls Liepiņš took 3rd for the domestic trade team being cut at season end.
Ethan Hayter of Great Britain finished in 4th; the 19-year-old having recently won European Track Championships gold and signed as a stagiaire for Team Sky.
Today's racing sees Bevin the new leader, on the same time as yesterday's stage winner Cameron Meyer (Mitchelton-Scott) with today's victor 3rd just two seconds back.
With Downey in that bunch today, Teggart was just a little further back; in 65th at 2:59 on a day when the field was scattered nine minutes back the road.
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