Peloton in Shock as Taco van der Hoorn wins from the Breakaway

Roompot-Nederlandse Loterij rider sprinted to victory as the day's five man breakaway out-foxed the peloton. Matej Mohoric (Bahrain-Merida) moves into the race lead.

The peloton were were in shock to witness the day's five man breakaway stay ahead and battle it out for the stage win. Taco van der Hoorn was the strongest in the final kilometres as the five strong group started to play cat and mouse.

Behind the peloton miscalculated the five men who worked well to survive to the line. 

Van der Hoorn, Mohoric, De Bie, Vantomme and Asselman all broke clear at the start of the stage and built up a lead of over 4m 40s.

With 55 kms to go Ag2r La Mondiale upped the pace and strung out the bunch, dropping some riders, knocking the lead down to 3 minutes but then slowed.

In the breakaway Matej Mohoric (Bahrain-Merida) put in some big attackes to drop his rival breakaway companions, but it was Taco van der Hoorn  blistering attack with 1 km to go that was the winning move.

Behind the peloton sprinted across the line 1m 11 secs down with Dylan Groenewegen (LottoNL-Jumbo) winning the peloton's bunch sprint.

With Matej Mohoric picking up time bonuse, it was enough for him to move into the race lead,

A stunned Taco van der Hoorn couldn't quite believe he'd won and said "The breakaway worked really well, we all took 2 minute turns all day, in the final 7 kms we increased the pace and did 1 minute turns and the decided to let it come down to a sprint. I can't quite believe it"

A lot of riders in the main peloton congratulated van der Hoorn at the finish for staying away and taking his first stage win at the Binck Bank Tour.

Previous race lead Stefan Kung who seized the lead on yesterday's individual time trial, now sits in third place, with van der Hoorn moving up to 5th overall and Sean De Bie and Maxime Vantomme from the breakaway in 2nd and 4th respectively.

Matej Mohoric gave us the key points of his thoughts after his great performance: "Today, the plan was to try to go in the breakaway - if it manages to stay away for the golden kilometre in order to get back some seconds on the GC that we lost yesterday in the time trial. In the end, all the guys in the breakaway worked well together me with and it stayed like this to the finish line. Unfortunately for me, everybody knew I was the strongest, so it didn't work out for me to win the stage. I'm sorry for my team, but this way, I even took some more points then I would take by a stage victory. At least we have the leader's jersey and we will do our best to defend it in the next days."

VIDEO: 2018 BinckBank Tour Stage 3 Final Kilometres

2018 BinckBank Tour Stage 3 Top 10

1 Taco van der Hoorn (Ned) Roompot-Nederlandse Loterij 3:47:42 
2 Maxime Vantomme (Bel) WB Aqua Protect Veranclassic 0:00:03 
3 Sean De Bie (Bel) Veranda's Willems Crelan   
4 Matej Mohoric (Slo) Bahrain-Merida   
5 Jesper Asselman (Ned) Roompot-Nederlandse Loterij 0:00:35 
6 Dylan Groenewegen (Ned) LottoNL-Jumbo 0:01:11 
7 Rüdiger Selig (Ger) Bora-Hansgrohe   
8 Fabio Jakobsen (Ned) Quick-Step Floors   
9 Max Walscheid (Ger) Team Sunweb   
10 Tom Van Asbroeck (Bel) EF Education First-Drapac p/b Cannondale  

2018 BinckBank Tour GC after Stage 3

1 Matej Mohoric (Slo) Bahrain-Merida 8:03:45 
2 Sean De Bie (Bel) Veranda's Willems Crelan 0:00:01 
3 Stefan Küng (Swi) BMC Racing Team 0:00:19 
4 Maxime Vantomme (Bel) WB Aqua Protect Veranclassic 0:00:25 
5 Taco van der Hoorn (Ned) Roompot-Nederlandse Loterij 0:00:31 
6 Victor Campenaerts (Bel) Lotto Soudal 0:00:33 
7 Søren Kragh Andersen (Den) Team Sunweb 0:00:34 
8 Michael Matthews (Aus) Team Sunweb   
9 Maximilian Schachmann (Ger) Quick-Step Floors 0:00:38 
10 Alex Dowsett (GBr) Katusha-Alpecin  

 
Tag: EnecoTour
 
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