Tour de Suisse Women: Elisa Balsamo scores stage 3 victory

Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek) won stage 3 of the Tour de Suisse Women, beating Mischa Bredewold (SD Worx-Protime) by a few centimetres in a sprint that went down to a photo finish.

Balsamo launched her sprint 250 metres from the finish and raised her left arm just before the finish line, but Bredewold came from behind on the final metres to make it a very close call.

The Italian held on to win, though, coming away with her fifth win of the year. Swiss champion Noemi Rüegg (EF Education-Oatly) rounded out the podium in third.

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“I am really happy. Today was a big goal for us. I was suffering so much the last two days, to win today was really good,” said Balsamo after her victory was confirmed by a photo finish

“It was really tight, but my teammates worked so hard today that I really wanted to win, and I did a super long sprint. Maybe too long, but in the end it was good enough to win.”

Stage winner Elisa Balsamo  (Lidl-Trek) and Mischa Bredewold (SD Worx-Protime) sprint to the finish line in Kussnacht (Image credit: Getty Images)

Kristen Faulkner (EF Education-Oatly) had attacked right after the start of the stage and stayed ahead of the peloton for almost 90km, her advantage maxing out at 1:45 minutes.

The Olympic champion was caught with 34km to go when riders jumped from the peloton on the false flat after the Aegeristrasse climb. These new attacks were quickly reeled in, though, and although there were more attacks on the run-in to Küssnacht, the stage came down to a sprint from a group of 34 riders.

Demi Vollering (FDJ-Suez) gained one second on Marlen Reusser (Movistar) at the day’s bonus sprints and goes into the final stage with a three-second deficit on the Swiss rider in the yellow jersey.

More to come….

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