Today took place the third stage of “Tour de Wallonie”, the most demanding one, from Marche en Famenne to Beaufays,179 kilometers long. Katusha Team was protagonist of a great performance: Mikhail Ignatyev took the second place, right behind Giacomo Nizzolo (RadioShack-Nissan) that defeated him for a mere nothing. Third position for Gianni Meersman (Lotto-Belisol), ahead of Danilo Di Luca (Acqua&Sapone) and another Katusha Team’s rider, Alexander Kolobnev, in fifth position. Kolobnev was protagonist of a good attack in one of the uphill of the route: together with some other riders, such as Carlos Betancur (Acqua&Sapone) and Zdenek Stybar (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) tried the attack. These attacks managed to make a huge selection in the group ahead, made in the end by 30 riders: Nizzolo was the fastest in the sprint, Ignatyev took the second place of the podium.
“Today it was a really hard stage – said Ignatyev – maybe the hardest of the whole competition. In the beginning I thought I couldn’t stay with the leader’s group, because yesterday I was in a long breakaway and I felt tired: but in the end I managed to keep the pace. In the end, RadioShack-Nissan did a huge work in order to make a good selection in the group: I did my best, and finally I felt in a good shape so I followed them. I had a very good sprint, unfortunately I missed the win but I’m pretty happy with my performance. Now the goal is to finish the competition in general classification top-3″.