A mistake from Magnier sees Fretin become the third winner in three sprints at the Tour of Guangxi

So far, there have been two sprints in the Tour of Guangxi. The first stage produced the expected winner, but in stage two, it was Frits Biesterbos who pulled off a stunning upset by handing Paul Magnier his very first sprint defeat in China. The Dutchman thus gave Picnic PostNL its first WorldTour victory of the year.

Stage three was a bit of a toss-up. With 1,800 meters of elevation gain, it was a much tougher stage than before, featuring a fairly hilly finish. Would the sprinters survive, or would they get dropped when the road started to climb?

Three riders broke away early in the stage. They were Jasha Sütterlin (Jayco AlUla), Tobias Bayer (Alpecin-Premier Tech), and Ruidong Wang (Chinese national team). They built a lead of nearly six minutes over the peloton. And Wang made the Chinese fans proud by winning the mountain sprints and taking the polka-dot jersey from Afonso Eulálio.

Bayer and Wang battled it out for the final mountain points, but were caught before the final climb. However, the climbs in the final stretch proved nowhere near enough to shake off the sprinters. And so, little by little, the lead-out trains began to form. Bahrain Victorious and Visma | Lease a Bike moved to the front, as did Biesterbos’s Picnic PostNL team.

In the final kilometer, Bieseterbos and Magnier were positioned perfectly. The Frenchman, wearing the red leader’s jersey, made the first move but popped out of his pedal. It was Milan Fretin who capitalized on the opportunity and broke away from the pack. The Belgian won by a narrow margin, ahead of the surging Biesterbos. The Dutchman did, however, take over the leader’s jersey. Fabio Jakobsen was close behind but finished just off the podium.