Last year, three stages in the Tour de Suisse boiled down to a bunch sprint. Peter Sagan sprinted to glory twice, while Maximiliano Richeze took one win. The World Champion is record holder in the Tour de Suisse with 13 stage wins.
Obviously, Sagan’s outstanding performances in Switzerland are closely linked to the landscape. Hardly any flat roads, so pure sprinters better stay home. Stage 3 is a fine example of a ‘flat stage’ in Switzerland. A lot of rolling roads and at kilometre 20, at kilometre 73.7 and at kilometre 144.7 the route takes in KOM-tops. Even more interesting is a 6.5% climb in the finale. The road starts to rise with 1.5 kilometre to go and then the last 600 metres are flat.
Stage 3 goes to Bern. Last year the Swiss capital hosted the Tour de France and two years ago the last two days of the Tour de Suisse were played out in the city with Alexei Lutsenko and Tom Dumoulin taking the flowers.
Two intermediate sprints (at kilometre 106.4 and at kilometre 133.4) come with time bonuses of 3, 2 and 1 seconds, while the first three riders on the line take 10, 6 and 4 seconds.
Read also: Results/race report 3rd stage 2017 Tour de Suisse.
Tour de Suisse 2017 stage 3: Route maps, height profiles, and more
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