A very undecided sprint turned to the advantage of the Dutchman Dylan Groenewegen (BikeExchange), who won the third stage of the Tour de France, Sunday in Sönderborg, for the last Danish day in front of a crowd of spectators.
Belgian Wout van Aert (Jumbo), second for the third time in a row, retained the leader’s yellow jersey after this 182 kilometer stage.
Groenewegen edged van Aert by a gut, while Belgian Jasper Philipsen took third ahead of Slovak Peter Sagan (fourth), apparently unhappy not to have found the opening.
The four men finished almost on the same line while the winner of the first sprint, the Dutchman Fabio Jakobsen, whose team was omnipresent, found himself locked in this sprint (fifth).
Coincidentally, success crowned the rider behind Jakobsen’s serious crash at the 2020 Tour of Poland. Groenewegen was suspended for nine months afterwards.
The Dutchman, who is 29, took his fifth stage success in the Tour, which he had not raced since 2019. He brought his total of victories to 62 since his debut at the highest level in 2016.
For this last stage in Denmark before the transfer to France, the race was transformed for a long time into a long parade between two tight hedges of spectators who celebrated the local Magnus Cort Nielsen, wearer of the best climber’s polka dot jersey, then the peloton .
The Danish rider, who had already escaped the day before, isolated himself from the first kilometer to open the road with a lead that peaked at six minutes. He offered himself an unforgettable ride of some 130 kilometers, for this unprecedented incursion of the Tour into his country, in front of a peloton led by the main teams of sprinters (Quick-Step, Lotto, BikeExchange, Alpecin).
After the race, the runners planned to reach the airport of Sönderborg, a locality located near the German border, to reach the north of France by plane. The race will resume on Tuesday for the fourth stage in the Monts du Boulonnais, between Dunkirk and Calais.
