Pidcock wins stage weeks after serious crash

Britain's Tom Pidcock has won stage three of the Tour of the Alps less than a month after a "horror crash" in Spain.

The Pinarello-Q36.5 rider beat Tommaso Dati of Ukyo and Egan Bernal of Ineos Grenadiers to the line in Arco after holding his position at the head of the peloton in a sprint and powering over the line in warm weather in northern Italy.

The 26-year-old showed real strength about three weeks after suffering a high-speed crash on a descent during March's Volta a Catalunya when he misjudged a corner.

"With my injury and the time off, it's been difficult," Pidcock said after the stage. "Coming back is very hard mentally - even the first time I was dropped, it was tough to deal with. So this win feels really nice."

Pidcock, who is famed in cycling for being a 'demon descender' - following his 2022 Tour de France stage win on Alpe d'Huez, in which he reached speeds of 100km/h - described the crash in March as "like one of these horror crashes you see... I [was] lucky I could talk on the radio".

The double Olympic mountain bike champion had been having a good season until the crash, narrowly losing out on victory at the Milan-San Remo monument race to Tadej Pogacar.

Pidcock is riding the Tour of the Alps in preparation for Sunday's monument Liege-Bastogne-Liege, before taking on the Tour de France for the first time for the team he joined last year.

Meanwhile, Britain's Ben Tulett said it was a "big surprise" to finish third in the traditional build-up race to Liege-Bastogne-Liege, La Fleche Wallonne.

Visma-Lease a Bike's Tulett, 24, just lost out near the top of the famous Mur de Huy climb in Belgium to the much-hailed new French talent Paul Seixas of Decathlon CMA CGM, who beat Switzerland's Mauro Schmid to victory.

Tour of the Alps stage 3 result

1. Tom Pidcock (GB/Q36.5) 4hrs 23mins 24secs

2. Tommaso Dati (ITA/Ukyo) same time

3. Egan Bernal (COL/Ineos Grenadiers) "

4. Luca Paletti (ITA/Bardiani-CSF) "

5. Aleksandr Vlasov (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) "

6. Sean Quinn (USA/EF Education-EasyPost) "

7. Chris Hamilton (AUS/Team Picnic PostNL) "

8. Jakob Omrzel (SLO/Bahrain-Victorious) "

9. Florian Stork (GER/Tudor Pro Cycling) "

10. Ben O'Connor (AUS/Jayco-AlUla)