Clarke maintains overall lead after uphill effort in Devil's Den State Park
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Sam Boardman (L39ION of Los Angeles) set the fastest time of the day, his first UCI victory.(Image credit: Snowy Mountain Photography)
Jonathan Clarke (Wildlife Generation Pro Cycling) gets to start tomorrow's criterium in yellow. He holds onto the jersey by a slim 11 second margin.(Image credit: Snowy Mountain Photography)
Shocked. Sam Boardman shed tears of joy after learning that he won his first race at a professional level.(Image credit: Snowy Mountain Photography)
The heaviest rain fell on the GC leaders, the skies opened up on Noah Granigan (Wildlife Federation Pro Cycling) as he approached the 2km left to go.(Image credit: Snowy Mountain Photography)
Tyler Stites (Project Echelon) was looking to move past Noah Granigan (Wildlife Federation Pro Cycling) in the GC with a strong performance in the TT. He finished the day one second ahead of Granigan, and only 11 seconds behind Granigan's teammate and GC leader, Jonathan Clarke.(Image credit: Snowy Mountain Photography)
Preston Glace (RideBikesBros), Phillipe Jacob (Desjardin), Tyler Williams (L39ION of Los Angeles), Tayne Andrade (Rio Grande Elite Cycling), take shelter under the Shimano neutral support tent as the rain started to fall in Devil's Den.(Image credit: Snowy Mountain Photography)
George Brian Jackson (Mitoq - NZ Cycling Project) in the Arkansas Tourism KOM jersey scored one point in the KOM competition which puts him in the solo lead for that classification given there are no KOM points on offer during Sunday's criterium.(Image credit: Snowy Mountain Photography)
Issac Bryant (Above and Beyond Cancer) had a strong performance in the TT and cut his deficit in the Best Young rider competition down to 11 seconds behind Josh Burnett.(Image credit: Snowy Mountain Photography)
Josh Burnett (Mitoq - NZ Cycling Project) maintained his lead in the White jersey competition, but only by 11 seconds.(Image credit: Snowy Mountain Photography)
Samuel Boardman (L39ION of Los Angeles) won the stage 3 uphill time trial at Joe Martin Stage Race on Saturday. He covered the 4.8km route in 9:37 minutes beating runner-up Alexander White (CS Velo Racing) and Tyler Stites (Project Echelon Racing) by two seconds.
"I'm very surprised. I wasn't looking at the numbers, I was looking down occasionally to see how much distance I had left, but today was purely based on feel," Boardman said. "I didn't actually find out until a competitor and friend came up to me a gave me a high five and congrats, and I said, 'for what?' and he said, 'I think you won.' So, I'm very surprised. I was able to go into today very relaxed and very chill and it genuinely helped keep my mind and body at ease. It's so easy to come into a time trial and stress about how many seconds you're going to lose to this person or that person, relative to the GC battle, but I didn't have any of that on my mind. I just wanted to go out and go hard."
Stites started day in third overall at 29 seconds back, and he moved up to second place overall after the time trial. His performance, however, was not enough to unseat stage 1 winner and overall race leader Jonathan Clarke (Wildlife Generation Pro Cycling Team).
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Although he lost time in the time trial, finishing 18th at 19 seconds behind the stage winner, Clarke still leads the overall race by 12 seconds ahead of Stites and 13 seconds ahead of teammate Noah Granigan.
The Joe Martin Stage Race concludes at stage 4 on Sunday in Fayetteville.
"This is the best I could ask for, for me, I'm not the best time triallist," Clarke said in a post-race interview. "Granigan and Stites are close [on time] and in second and third overall. We've had a pretty active first couple of days so the legs are going to be tired. The goal was to stay up there. So, hopefully [tomorrow] Granigan can take care of some bonus sprints, and he can actually still win. I don't know how many bonus sprints there are tomorrow, maybe three or two. We'll defend, and try to stop Stites from gaining seconds, which might mean Granigan sprinting, and we have other fast guys here."
Kirsten Frattini is the Deputy Editor of Cyclingnews, overseeing the global racing content plan.
Kirsten has a background in Kinesiology and Health Science. She has been involved in cycling from the community and grassroots level to professional cycling's biggest races, reporting on the WorldTour, Spring Classics, Tours de France, World Championships and Olympic Games.
She began her sports journalism career with Cyclingnews as a North American Correspondent in 2006. In 2018, Kirsten became Women's Editor – overseeing the content strategy, race coverage and growth of women's professional cycling – before becoming Deputy Editor in 2023.
