Bike World News

With two stages remaining at the Tour do Rio, Team Type 1′s Chris Jones remains within striking distance of the overall lead.

Jones finished 15th on Friday’s Stage 3 to hold onto his second place overall, 18 seconds behind Tomas Alberio (Trevigiani Dynamon Bottoli). The Italian won the first two stages and finished third Friday.

The 94-mile (152 km) race was expected to produce a considerable shake-up in the standings. But the mountainous route from Três Rios to Nova Friburgo ended with 34 riders contesting a bunch sprint behind Spaniard Sergio Casanova (MMRBikes.com), who soloed to the finish four seconds ahead of the field.

Team Type 1′s Ken Hanson finished fourth on the day and will wear the green jersey again Saturday. Hanson is within six points of Alberio in the sprint competition and lies sixth overall, 1:14 behind.

“We didn’t expect Alberio to survive the climbs today,” Team Type 1 Director Sportif Vassili Davidenko said. “At one point he got dropped, but then he fought back. It was a really hard stage for everyone.”

Team Type 1′s Fabio Calabria – who, along with teammate Joe Eldridge – has Type 1 diabetes – was in the large early break that formed before the day’s major climb. But only four riders remained when the escapees topped the summit, with Casanova making it all the way to the finish.

Stage 4 will travel up the coastline from Nova Friburgo and head inland west to finish 97 miles (157 km) later at Cabo Frio. The first half of the course is extremely up and down, followed by a nearly flat run-in to the finish.

Jones said his priority is to hang onto his position overall and try to set up Hanson – who was fifth on Stage 1 and second on Stage 2 – for the stage win.

“The profiles of the next two stages appear to be flat so it will be hard to move up on the general classification for me,” Jones said. “We will look for any opportunity to make up time, but our primary focus is to win tomorrow’s stage. Ken has shown that he is climbing and sprinting well.”

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