Ivan Garcia Cortina (Bahrain-McLaren) was victorious on stage 3 of Paris-Nice in La Châtre on Tuesday. It was a chaotic bunch finish but the Spaniard showed his strength on the slightly uphill final kick to hold off Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Andrea Pasqualon (Circus-Wanty Gobert).
Cortina managed to avoid a series of crashes on the way to the finish line. In the final 200 metres, rival Sam Bennett (Deceuninck-QuickStep) was forced into the barriers when Hugo Hofstetter (Israel Start-Up Nation) appeared to lose control of his bike and clip the wheel of Caleb Ewan (Lotto Soudal).
During the 212.5km stage from Chalette-sur-Loing to La Châtre, solo breakaway rider Tom Devriendt (Circus-Wanty Gobert) built a lead of up to nine minutes before being held up at a railroad crossing. Once his race got underway again, the advantage dropped to three minutes and he was caught by the field inside 25km to go.
Strong winds and rain made for a challenging stage, and some unfortunate crashes included Niki Terpstra (Total-Direct Energie) and Bryan Coquard (B&B Hotels-Vital Concept).
Max Schachmann (Bora-Hansgrohe) finished safely in the field and retained the yellow jersey of race leader by 13 seconds over runner-up Giacomo Nizzolo (NTT Pro Cycling) and 24 seconds ahead of Jasper Stuyven (Trek-Segafredo).
