McNulty wins TT, Ayuso yellow in Romandie, Del Toro wins in Asturias

UAE Team Emirates celebrated a successful day at the races with US TT Champion Brandon McNulty putting his stamp on the stage 3 time trial, winning the 15.5km race against the clock in 20:06 at the Tour de Romandie.

His teammate Juan Ayuso finished 4th, 20” behind and goes into the yellow jersey with 2 stages remaining. Felix Grossschartner also put in a great ride to take 3rd place at 14”

McNulty: “It was nice. I didn’t know what to expect after the last few days. I had a good ride, and maybe I was a bit lucky with the weather. It’s nice to have a win, I was lucky to be in the dry, and it’s a bit strange because you don’t know if you were actually the fastest, but always happy with a win. Now we obviously need to defend because tomorrow will be a tough day, we look forward to defending the jersey now.”

Ayuso now leads the overall classification by seven seconds ahead of Ilan Van Wilder (Soudal-QuickStep) and 10 seconds ahead of Aleksandr Vlasov (Bora-Hansgrohe).

Ayuso : “It was a very hard TT and I think everybody suffered on it. All my teammates said they found it really tough when they got back to the bus so mentally, I was prepared for that. Personally, I didn’t have great sensations, but I think I managed to control my effort and push in the right places. In the wet it was quite tricky, and I had to take a few risks. I think I’m in a good position on GC and hope we can hold on for a few more days and take home the GC. Quite a few guys are within a minute, so we still have a lot of work to do to be able to win this race.”

Meanwhile at Vuelta Asturias Isaac Del Toro continued to show his talent with a solo stage win on stage 1 of the race. The Mexican, 20, broke away over the final climb at -10km to the line and held the gap to the line, with his teammate Rafal Majka taking 2nd 1 minute behind.

Del Toro: “I had really good sensations today and the team believed in me and gave me the opportunity to go for the win. When I attacked, I knew I had Majka covering the attacks behind so that was a big plus and shows the strength of our team and how well we ride together. I’m really happy with the victory and we will try and defend the lead to the end.”

Tour de Romandie stage 3 results

1.Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates) 20’06”

2.Magnus Sheffield (Ineos Grenadiers) +13”

3.Felix Grossschartner (UAE Team Emirates) +15”

Tour de Romandie general classification after stage 3

1.Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates) 8:16:26

2.Ilan Van Wilder (Soudal Quickstep) +7”

3.Aleksandr Vlasov (Bora Hansgrohe) +10”

Vuelta Asturias stage & GC

1.Isaac Del Toro (UAE Team Emirates) 4:46:14

2.Rafal Majka (UAE Team Emirates) +1’01”

3.Eric Fagundez (Burgos BH) +1’04”