Rain-soaked stage three sees Merlier and Gaviria cross swords in Hungary

Tim Merlier has won stage three of the Tour of Hungary. After a chaotic, rain-hit day, it came down to a bunch sprint. Merlier came past Fernando Gaviria in the final metres to take the win. With the victory, Merlier takes the race leader's jersey from Benoît Cosnefroy.

While the Giro d'Italia was presenting its first major mountain test, racing was also going on in Hungary. After Merlier convincingly won the opening stage on Wednesday, UAE took a different approach on day two — a stage that went viral thanks to a deer darting into the peloton.

Benoît Cosnefroy went on the attack in the closing phase to claim stage 2, taking the leader's jersey in the process. Thursday's stage again featured some hilly terrain, but unlike Wednesday, the final 20 kilometres were completely flat.

A group of five got clear early: Bauke Mollema (Lidl-Trek), Michael Vanthourenhout (Pauwels Sauzen), Erik Fetter (United Shipping), Victor Vercouillie (Flanders-Baloise) and Ádám Révész (Campana Imballagi – Morbiato – Trentino). The peloton, led by UAE, never gave the five more than two minutes.

The weather made for a miserable day: heavy rain fell throughout. Fetter and Vercouillie both targeted the mountain points on the stage's two categorised climbs and shared them fairly equally, ending up on exactly the same total.

After the climbs, Soudal Quick-Step joined UAE at the head of the peloton, and the break's advantage quickly dropped below a minute. With 40 kilometres to go, however, Révész was literally dropped from the lead group — the Hungarian slid out on the wet tarmac and had to let his four breakaway companions go.

As the group was almost caught by the peloton, Mollema attacked. Vercouillie went with him — but with 20 kilometres left and just 20 seconds of advantage, the odds were against them. Especially when strong winds and driving rain suddenly caused echelon splits in the chasing bunch.

The peloton fractured 15 kilometres from the line into several groups, with second-placed Kristian Egholm (Lidl-Trek) among those caught out. Jayco AlUla set a fierce pace in the final 10 kilometres, preventing the split groups from rejoining.

Merlier was delivered brilliantly in the final kilometre — though the wet roads demanded extreme caution. It was Fernando Gaviria who launched early and looked set for a long time to win the stage, until Merlier came level in the closing metres. It was Merlier's second win of the Tour of Hungary, and with it he takes the race leader's jersey from Cosnefroy.