Daan Depuydt won the third stage of the Tour du Limousin on Thursday, the Baloise Verzekeringen-Het Postbureau Lion rider winning a two man sprint on the uphill finish into Égletons.
Depuydt attacked what remained of the peloton inside the final 400 metres, taking Axel Mariault (CIC Academy) with him on their long range sprint. For a while it seemed as though Mariault would overhaul his rival, but the Belgian held on to take his first professional road victory.
Alex Aranburu (Cofidis) was third, leading the bunch home on the same time as the winner.
After winning stage 2 and taking the yellow jersey, Ewen Costiou (Groupama-FDJ United) finished fifth, retaining the overall lead with an advantage of 21 seconds with one stage to go.
It was another lumpy day at the Tour du Limousin, the 181.8km stage between Saint-Privat and Égletons climbing more than 3,000m.
It was another aggressive start to the day, and despite several attacks it took more than 30km for the breakaway to form. Eventually Léandre Lozouet (CIC Academy), Théo Delacroix (St Michel-Preference Homes-Auber93) and the Lotto-Intermarché pair of Matys Grisel and Baptiste Veistroffer, who had been part of the stage two breakaway, got away, building a lead of around a minute.
They were soon joined by seven other riders, and an 11-man group set about building their advantage, though such a large group was never going to be allowed too much of an advantage, and they struggled to put more than 1:30 into the peloton.
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With 32km to go the leaders were caught and two more riders headed up the road, Maxence Place (Lotto-Intermarché) and Pierre-Henry Basset (XDS-Astana) attacking on a climb and building a lead of 30 seconds, though Place crashed on a bend leaving Basset alone in the final 20km.
Though his lead extended to one minute, he was reeled in by what remained of the peloton, his heart broken as he was caught with just 800m to go.
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A recent addition to the Cyclingnews staff, Owen Rogers is an experienced journalist, working as a freelancer covering the sport for various magazines and websites for more than 10 years.
Initially concentrating mainly on the women's sport, he has covered hundreds of race days on the ground and interviewed some of the sport's biggest names.
Living near Cambridge in the UK, when he's not working you'll find him either riding his bike or playing drums.
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