Not Pogačar, but Narvaez wins Tour de Suisse stage 3 after 105 stormy kilometres in the breakaway

The third stage of the Tour de Suisse was won on Friday by Jhonatan Narváez of UAE Emirates-XRG. The Ecuadorian puncher outpaced fellow breakaway rider Xandro Meurisse (Pinarello-Q36.5) after 105 km out front in rain, wind and electrical storms.

During the first two days of the Tour de Suisse, the focus was, unsurprisingly, mainly on Tadej Pogacar. The Slovenian rider from UAE Emirates-XRG won the first stage by a wide margin, but his euphoria came crashing down even before the start of the second stage. This was entirely due to a hard crash involving his partner, Urska Zigart.

A few dozen minutes before Pogacar was set to start his stage in Locarno, Zigart took a hard fall on her face in the final kilometer of her race. In the end, given the circumstances, she got off with “just” a broken jaw, and Pogacar started the race as planned, heading to the hospital immediately after the ride.

Before Stage 3 , Pogacar did speak. “Fortunately, things are going well. I went straight to see Urska at the hospital yesterday after the stage. She had to stay there overnight as a precaution, but thankfully she was discharged today. She’s doing well under the circumstances and is incredibly positive. She’s a real fighter and incredibly strong, which gives me even more motivation for the coming days.”

Pogacar wanted to win the Tour de Suisse for his fiancée, but even before the start of Stage 3, he suspected it would be a day for the breakaway riders. His comments didn’t fall on deaf ears, because the race was on from the very start. Strong climbers like Aleksandr Vlasov (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) and Enric Mas (Movistar) set the pace.

That made things difficult for the heavier riders, and they dropped out in droves: among them Casper van Uden (Picnic PostNL), Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Premier Tech), and Marius Mayrhofer (Tudor) all headed for the support car, knowing that even in this stage with a flat finish, they wouldn’t stand a chance.

Even Pogacar was part of the breakaway at one point, but in the end, three riders pulled away. Narvaez, Meurisse, and Michal Kwiatkowski (Netcompany INEOS), who then had to let go and fell back into the second group. That group also included Vlasov, Marco Brenner (Tudor), Ewn Costiou (Groupama-FDJ), Simon Dalby (Uno-X), Max Schachmann (Soudal Quick-Step), Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious), and Emiel Verstrynge of Alpecin-Premier Tech.

At one point, Narvaez pulled away from Meurisse, but then decided to wait after all. The chasing group eventually realized the futility of their effort and were caught by the peloton, which was led by Jayco AlUla. Meanwhile, it also started pouring in Switzerland, with strong gusts of wind and heavy thunderstorms on this hot day. As a result, Pogacar also moved up to the front to stay out of harm’s way.

Narvaez and Meurisse didn’t pay much attention to any of it: they kept the peloton—which was being chased by Visma | Lease a Bike, Lidl-Trek, Jayco AlUla, and EF Education-EasyPost—three minutes behind. At least for a while, because more and more teams joined the chase, and with 20 kilometers to go, the gap had narrowed to 1.50 minutes.

10 kilometers further on, 1.07 minutes of that lead remained, so it promised to be an exciting final stretch in the Swiss rain. That gave the leading duo a slight advantage, as the peloton typically has a harder time navigating the turns under those conditions. Nils Politt and Tim Wellens also got in the way a bit, which seemed to be the final blow for the peloton.

Narvaez and Meurisse continued to work well together, until the TV signal cut out due to a thunderstorm in the final one and a half kilometers. The live ticker then showed that it was Narvaez who, as expected, won. Cort finished third—from the peloton—in the same time. Marijn van den Berg came in fourth, and Mathieu van der Poel fifth.