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Impeccable lead-out for Michael Matthews leads to sprint victory at Tour de Suisse tage 3

  • Ron 

After being catapulted to the finish by Team Sunweb’s German lead-out, Michael Matthews (AUS) launched an explosive sprint to take the stage three victory at Tour de Suisse. His victory means that he now leads in the general classification by 10 seconds.

In a day where everything went perfectly, Team Sunweb were able to secure the victory at stage three of the Tour de Suisse today. With the team at the head of the peloton controlling proceedings, the breakaway were brought back in time for the team to get organised for the bunch sprint. On the approach to the finale the team stayed calm and were there with three riders around Matthews, delivering him to the final kilometres in prime position. A final acceleration from the team’s German sprinter and lead-out specialist Nikias Arndt positioned Matthews at the head of the peloton and with 150 metres to go he was able to launch a strong sprint on his Giant TCR Advanced SL with enough power to propel himself to victory. His victory also means that he takes over the lead in the general classification and is now 10 seconds ahead of Team Sunweb’s Giro d’Italia winner Tom Dumoulin (NED).

After the victory Matthews said: “I wasn’t climbing so well today but it was enough to stay with the best. In the final I knew that I had Nikias and the other guys with me which gave me some extra motivation. I knew that he could do a huge pull in the final metres to make the situation perfect for me to take the win. It’s nice to get the win that I really wanted to get last year and it will be really good to have the leader’s jersey tomorrow.”

Team Sunweb coach Marc Reef added: “The plan for today was to go for Michael, we knew that the final suited him perfectly and everybody was feeling strong to put their all in to support this goal. We joined in the chase to control the breakaway and the rest of the team were able to put Nikias and Michael together in a perfect position going into the final 1.5 kilometres. The team stayed calm and Michael was able to follow Nikias’s perfect lead-out to sprint to the win in a very difficult finale.”

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