Del Toro bluffs a completely broken Evenepoel, but Tiberi proves the strongest on brutal UAE finish

Tuesday’s time trial was still fresh in the mind, and it delivered the expected outcome. Remco Evenepoel dealt a heavy blow to his GC rivals — and especially to Isaac del Toro, who, in the leader’s jersey, conceded 42 seconds. But stage three looked tailor-made for Del Toro’s climbing punch.

The climb to Jebel Mobrah is new, but viciously hard, with the final 6 kilometres averaging over 11%. A spectacular stage seemed guaranteed. The dead-flat approach didn’t really invite a breakaway, but that didn’t stop an Alpecin–Premier Tech duo: Silvan Dillier and Jonas Rickaert went up the road together.

Rickaert has done it before at the Tour de France: the ninth stage to Châteauroux looked set to be a snooze-fest, but the Belgian lit it up by attacking with Mathieu van der Poel and bringing his teammate agonisingly close to a stage win. In this mountain stage, that felt like a tall order — even if the leaders’ advantage did grow to nearly nine minutes.

As expected, the gap started to melt quickly approaching the finale. UAE Team Emirates–XRG lifted the pace hard, led by Nils Politt. After the final intermediate sprint, the lead duo appeared to ease off, and their advantage disappeared rapidly — although they did at least start Jebel Mobrah first.

On the steep final climb, it was immediately the teams of Del Toro and Evenepoel that began to press. Chris Harper (Q36.5) attacked early, with 11 punishing kilometres still to go, but thanks to strong work from Daan Hoole (Decathlon–CMA CGM), the Australian never truly got away. That meant the waiting game could begin for the first move from a top favourite.

That move eventually came from Felix Gall (Decathlon–CMA CGM). Only Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious) and Evenepoel could follow at first, but both ultimately had to let the Austrian go. Del Toro spent the entire climb sitting at the back of the group and was immediately distanced when the pace lifted — though he later returned, seemingly comfortably, to the group containing Evenepoel.

Up front, Tiberi found a second wind, bridged across to Gall and then rode straight past him. Meanwhile, Evenepoel was forced to let the group with Del Toro go. The Belgian showed clear signs of cramp and completely folded on the final climb.

Where Del Toro had initially been dropped when the favourites accelerated, the Mexican now turned the script. Together with Lennert Van Eetvelt (Lotto–Intermarché), he set off in pursuit of Tiberi. The UAE Team Emirates–XRG climber had paced his effort well enough to dream again of the stage win — but he still had around 40 seconds to bring back.

After Van Eetvelt and Harold Tejada (XDS Astana) were also dropped from Del Toro’s group, the final kilometre became a straight duel between the Italian and the Mexican. The gap was still a little over 20 seconds at the flamme rouge. It proved just enough: Tiberi held on to win ahead of Del Toro and Van Eetvelt. With that, Tiberi also takes over the race lead from Evenepoel. The Belgian ultimately lost more than two minutes to the Bahrain Victorious rider.