43rd Cinturón a Mallorca (2.2) - Stage Three

Russell Downing scored again, but as solo winner this time. The Pinarello Racing Team star rider from the UK crossed the line eight seconds clear of his six nearest pursuers in Friday's "halfway" stage, held around Inca town. The 134.4 kilometre leg featured two passages over the second category hill of Sa Batalla. No selection was made there, but still the climb had some significant impact on both the legs of several contenders and the stage outcome: after struggling on its slopes many riders weren't left with enough gasoline to counter the seven-man move that went away with a dozen miles remaining.
Downing was obviously one of the Seven Wonders and successfully attacked his breakaway mates in the final mile. But so was Germany's Cristopher Meschenmoser (Team Ista), who snatched seventh in the day's ranking and took the yellow jersey from teammate Joerg Lehmann. The race opener winner lost 31 seconds to the new GC leader as he finished with the next bunch of 29. The most dangerous GC threat is now another Briton, Daniel Lloyd of the Sean Kelly team, who was on the move both early and late in the stage and is currently down on GC by just a mere second. The Irish squad also got Paidi O'Brien as tenth-place getter and sits in spot number of the Teams ranking, led by Germany's Ista. At his turn Russ Downing powered his way up to the top ten places overall and - needless to say - to the very summit of the points classification.

"The stage was fast and tough, but I worked hard to win it" Downing said, adding that he had a hard time after the first passage over Sa Batalla, but held on and later found the power to take his second victory in a row. When the race hit the ascent again, he was surprised that nobody went on the attack, and that he wasn't dropped again, so he decided to give it a try in the last kilometres of the stage. He must be glad he did. Still, he doesn't think he can be a serious overall contender; his goals in this race were (are) some stage win and to finish atop the regularidad classification. He's not doing bad in this sense, is he?

Cristoph Meschenmoser, who experienced the UCI Pro Tour scene when wearing the Gerolsteiner and Skill-Shimano jerseys in the past, is confident that he can win this race instead, even if he admitted that it's gonna be tough for him in both stages to come. He didn't have a easy time on the Sa Batalla either, but his morale is high, so everything can happen. Even that Daniel Lloyd would stole the yellow jersey ...

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