Alessio Magagnotti, remember the name. 📸 © Tour de Bretagne.

Hey Subscribers,

This was going to be a slightly shorter newsletter from me this evening, but when I returned to the hotel, I discovered that Lotto-Groupe Wanty are threatening to pull out of the race after their rider and overnight race leader, Halvor Dolven, was ruled to have been on the wrong side of a split in the final few kilometres.

According to the Belgian team, the Norwegian was held up by a crash, but the UCI saw it differently, and as it stands, Dolven is out of the lead.

We’ve heard that the sports directors at the race will discuss the matter and meet tomorrow to decide how to proceed, as there’s apparently frustration with the UCI officials – not the race organisers, I should add – over the decision. We’ll hear from Lotto sports director Wesley Van Speybroeck in today’s newsletter.

We also have race insight and analysis from stage 3 as Alessio Magagnotti bounced back to take his second stage win in three days and reclaim the leader’s jersey. As it stands, Magagnotti leads Dolven by eight seconds.

We hear from the Italian on his stage win in Concoret, and we talk to U23 Paris-Roubaix runner-up Seth Dunwoody about what it was like inside the peloton on stage 3 and how the Irish talent is finding his feet in the race after crashing on stage 1.

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There’s no Scouting Report today as I interviewed Ineos Grenadiers’ U23 head honcho Simon Watts at the start of this morning in Drefféac, but the reports will return tomorrow. The audio interview with Watts is about to be posted in the WhatsApp group.

Daniel 🫶

We start the newsletter tonight with a recap of stage 3, from Drefféac to Concoret. This was one of the toughest stages of the race, with three categorised climbs, several intermediate sprints, and four final 10.2km circuits that had hardly a metre of flat. The roads were tight and twisty, and the peloton was tense throughout the day.

We saw several late crashes, and at the finish, as the podium celebrations were announced over the loudspeaker, Cam Rogers (Ineos Grenadiers) sat to the side of the stage with half his kit missing. He was among the late fallers, and his entire right side, especially his hip and shoulder, was covered in road rash that was so raw it was almost glowing.

He looked away as three members of the race’s medical team carefully dressed his wounds. The Australian should be okay for tomorrow, but of course, he’ll need to undergo strict medical tests, either at the hotel or at the hospital, depending on how the Ineos doctors see it. He did finish the stage and deserves immense credit for that.

In terms of the blow-by-blow, we had another dangerous break go up the road today with five riders: Gabin Gicquel (Vendée U Primeo Energie), Ludovic Morice (VC Pays de Loudéac), Luc Royer (Soudal Quick-Step Devo Team), Ben Felix Jochum (Team Lotto Kern-Haus Outlet Montabaur), and Bogdan Zabelinskiy (Aarco) going clear.