Ce mardi 17 juin, la 3e étape du Tour de Suisse s’annonçait à nouveau exigeante et très ouverte entre Aarau et Heiden (195,8 km). Avec près de 3 000 mètres de dénivelé, le parcours était taillé pour les puncheurs, surtout dans un final piégeux et vallonné comprenant le Knolhusen (5,2 km à 6,2 %) à 20 km avant avant une dernière montée de 3,4 km à 5,3% jusqu'à la ligne d'arrivée. Dernier rescapé de l'échappée matinale, Quinn Simmons (Lidl-Trek) a fait le show sur les hauteurs du Lac de Constance, écoeurant d'abord ses compagnons de fuite à 20 bornes du but puis un peloton pourtant revenu un temps à 15 secondes mais qui a finalement buté dans les derniers kilomètres sur l'Américain, impressionnant. Une performance majuscule pour le tout récent champion des États-Unis, qui confirme son excellente forme après sa 4e place, déjà, la veille. Le peloton n'a pas suffisamment réussi à s'organiser pour le reprendre et échoue à 18 secondes, réglé au sprint par João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG).
Video : Tour de Suisse
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02:07I had a really bad season in the Jersey last time.
02:10I don't even know if you can call it a season because I only raced maybe 15 times and then was out with injury.
02:15But to do it here and to take my second World Tour victory of the season, I'm starting to come to the level that I think people expected of me and that's been missing for two years.
02:25So it's really nice to be here.
02:26Yesterday you have already shown that you are one of the riders in strength here but when we saw you with what you have shown yesterday, when we saw you going to the breakaway and this breakaway game no more than 2 minutes 30, I think we were wondering a bit if you were not wasting your energy there.
02:40You knew that it could work?
02:42No, to be honest, I think, yeah, that shows maybe a bit of mental growth on my side because I was so demoralized and at one point I was almost going to ask if I could come back to the peloton because I was like, ah, we have a minute 20, this is stupid.
02:55But, yeah, stayed checked in the race, had full motivation from the car behind and when you can go away like this and, you know, you have good legs and an opportunity, you know, it doesn't happen often for us.
03:07It's so hard to win a bike race so you can't let an opportunity go.
03:10And when we were in the last kilometers that you made your move, you were alone, how was the mood at this moment?
03:16To be honest, I didn't believe in it until the last 2-3K.
03:19Yeah, for sure I was going to go deep and for sure I was going to see how far I could make it but I really didn't think I could make it to the final until 3K to go and you could even hear from the radio behind and from the riders behind pushing that there's a moment where it switches and you can hear the car starting to believe and then you start to believe and suddenly a 40 seconds with 2K to go and you're like, ah, I did it.
03:41And is the next dream to bring that jersey to the next Tour de France?
03:44You know the answer to that.
03:45Yeah, and is it in a good way, you think, with that victory? Does it need to have more points for it to be granted?
03:51I mean, at this point, my plan was to come to Swiss with such a high level that they couldn't leave me at home and if they leave me now, it's up to the team. I did my part.
04:00Well, congratulations. Thank you very much.
04:03We were expecting a race between GC Leader. There was Queen Simons as a disruptive element. Tell us a bit how it happened.
04:10Yeah, it was super fast today. It was quite hard. And then I decided to give it a try. I guess 6 seconds in 3 minutes is not much. But yeah, I gave my best. The team worked really good. So yeah, one last day in the books.
04:27Hey, you have to start somewhere to get in time though. Tell us a bit about that sprint in itself. When did you decide to go for it? Tell us how it went.
04:34Yeah, I think it was a good moment when I went. The kind of slowed a little bit. It slowed a little bit. So it was like less than one case at the finish. So it was nothing crazy.
04:45Disappointed a bit that there was still Queen Simons because he would have won the sprint of the match.
