Pavel Bittner sprints to 5th after strong teamwork ahead of technical Vuelta a España finale

After taking a sixth place in Sunday’s sprint stage with Pavel Bittner, Team dsm-firmenich PostNL were aiming to go even better on stage three and look for the finish once again with Bittner. Laying ahead of them was a 191 kilometre route from Lousã to Castelo Branco and the last full stage on Portuguese soil.

Following a similar pattern to yesterday, a four rider break managed to escape with relative ease from the roll-out and quickly built up a gap of around five minutes. Staying within the bunch, the team looked to keep their proverbial powder dry, making sure to get through the day in a good way. Heading into the final 40 kilometres the pace in the peloton ramped up and the break was soon caught with more than 20 kilometres to go. There, the team rode cohesively as a unit and came forward en masse, keeping Bittner in position but alongside that ensuring that Max Poole was also safe as well.

As the kilometres ticked by the battle for position grew more intense but the team held the right side of the road brilliantly, leaving Martijn Tusveld with Bittner in around tenth wheel at around one kilometre to go. Tusveld then dropped Bittner off who then followed those in front of him but on the twisting and turning deep final it was hard to move up any further. Bittner launched a strong kick, sprinting as hard as he could and came past several riders in the closing metres to take a strong fifth place.

Speaking after the stage Bittner expressed: “It’s one place progression so that’s always nice. I think we did a really, really amazing job. I was looking forward to the final so much when I saw the guys lining up on the ride side all together, we were really organised, that was something nice to watch. It was then pretty chaotic in the final. I had to dig really deep to find something for the sprint. It was quite twisty so the guys ahead of me had an advantage so it was too much to sprint for the win but it’s still really nice to sprint for a top five in a Grand Tour stage. The speed is there and I think if I make those one second decisions a bit better, then I think we can get an even better result as a team in the next sprint chances.”

Team dsm-firmenich PostNL coach Phil West added: “Our goal again on stage three was to sprint with Pavel today and keep Max out of trouble. It was another super hot day in Portugal. I’m happy to say that we came through it in a good way. The boys are working well as a team, and cooling and eating really good, and the support we have from the staff on the ground is really good in that respect. We were able to bring Pavel into the finish in a really nice way, and we saw some good teamwork in the final of the race. It was another nice sprint from Pavel to get fifth on the day, which is a good result. We’re also happy Max could come through the day in a nice way after his crash yesterday, but we will see how that goes tomorrow in the first climbing stage.”