Stage three of the Tour de Romandie ended with Elise Chabbey crossing the line in 20th place. A two-rider breakaway took the top podium spots, while Chabbey and teammates Chloé Dygert and Antonia Niedermaier were in a group of thirty riders sprinting for third place. All three riders were involved in a crash in a roundabout with just 400m remaining on the stage. They could get back on their bikes and ride to the finish line in Morges.

RIDER REACTIONS

Soraya Paladin: “Today, we had nothing to lose and tried to race aggressively. We had some good breakaways, one with me and another with Chloé, but they were all caught in the end. Going into the final, we had numbers, and the gap to the breakaway was coming down, so we believed we had a good chance to win the bunch sprint. Unfortunately, Antonia, Elise and Chloé all went down in a crash on the final roundabout.”

“As a team, we had high ambitions, and even if the results didn’t show it, we raced well together and tried to keep the morale high after each stage. Antonia was our GC leader. She’s young, and having this opportunity is important for her experience and development so that she can learn to be a leader.”

“I was feeling better every day, and that gave me confidence. I rested a lot after GP Plouay and was too fresh coming into the race. I tried to help the team as much as possible and to use this race to help towards the final season opportunities.”

Antonia finished fifteenth in the general clasification at +2:38 minutes behind overall winner Lotte Kopecky (SDW)

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