Andre Schulze sprints to twelfth place in the third stage of the Bayern Rundfahrt
The third stage of the Bayern Rundfahrt covered a distance of 196.4 kilometers between Kempten and Treuchtlingen. Alessandro Petacchi (Team Lampre ISD) relegated Yauheni Hutarovich (Team FDJ) and John Degenkolb (Team Argos Shimano) to second and third places respectively in yet another mass sprint. By taking third place, John Degenkolb takes over the best young rider jersey from NetApp rider Michael Schwarzmann.
The overall rankings remain unchanged, with Michael Rogers (Team Sky) still in the lead, followed by Vladimir Gusev (Team Katusha) and Jerome Coppel (Team Saur SojaSun). The best-placed NetApp rider remains Michaels Schwarzmann in tenth place.
“Unfortunately, we didn’t manage to completely avoid the fall at the beginning of the race. Marcel Wyss was caught up in it and was unable to continue with the race due to a torn muscle and a few bruises. The fall occurred in parallel to the first move to attack”, explains Enrico Poitschke, commenting on the race.
As the fall occurred, a four-man breakaway group was able to gain a lead of almost ten minutes until the sprinter teams took up the chase after 66 kilometers and caught up with the group in time.
“In the mass sprint that followed, Blaz Jarc managed to get our sprinter Andre Schulze into a good position, but Andre was not able to get as far as we’d hope and sprinted to twelfth place”, Poitschke goes on to say.
After a long break due to injury, Leo König was once again back in the race. “Leo did a great job here. He’s much better and is in good form, which we’re currently building on bit by bit after the long break he was forced to take”, explains Enrico Poitschke.
Tomorrow’s fourth stage will be run as individual time trials over a course of 26.4 kilometers with its start and finish in Feuchtwangen.
stage 1, 23 May: Traunstein - Penzberg, 215.7 km
stage 2, 24 May: Penzberg - Kempten, 195.6 km
stage 3, 25 May: Kempten - Treuchtlingen, 196.4 km
stage 4, 26 May: ITT Feuchtwangen, 26.4 km
stage 5, 27 May: Feuchtwangen - Bamberg, 167.8 km
