Deutschland Tour stage 3: Søren Wærenskjold declared stage winner as Van Poppel relegated

“I’ve seen the footage, and I think it was the right decision. It’s not the way I want to win. He was the strongest one but he didn’t keep the line. If he just kept the line he would have won anyway,” Wærenskjold said.

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The sprint could have been a disaster as Matthew Brennan (Visma-Lease a Bike) tried to squeeze through between Van Poppel and Wærenskjold, but the Dutch champion moved left and squeezed Brennan out, nearly causing a crash.

Long after Van Poppel had celebrated what would have been a victory, the officials reversed the result, pushing the Norwegian to the top of the leaderboard.

With the time bonus for the stage win, Wærenskjold continues as race leader now ten seconds ahead of Jhonatan Narváez (UAE Team Emirates XRG). Riley Sheehan (Israel-Premier Tech) is third at 15 seconds.

The Norwegian had to fight his way back to the peloton after being distanced on a climb during the stage but managed to get back on his own.

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“It was super hard, also mentally after I was alone at the end after I got some good help from my teammates. Unfortunately they didn’t stick with me over the hardest climb. I was just waiting for them to attack and say, ‘that’s it, it’s over for me’ – luckily they didn’t attack and I could get some bonus seconds in the end.”

Stage 3 of the Deutschland Tour was tightly controlled by the peloton, with a three-rider breakaway lasting only the first half of the 175.7km stage from Arnsberg to Kassel.

Enzo Leijnse (Picnic-PostNL), Marco Haller (Tudor) and Jannik Steimle (Q36.5) gained over three minutes but Lidl-Trek and Visma-Lease a Bike set a furious pace to reel them in with 83km to go.

The battle for the GC between Narvaez and Wærenskjold continued at the bonus sprint with 3km to go, where Narváez got the better of the race leader.

Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) led the peloton in to the final few hundred metres but after Wærenskjold opened up the sprint, his teammate Matthew Brennan could not find his way through and Van Poppel snatched the win.

Then, officials reversed the result after deciding Van Poppel had deviated from his line.