GENEVA, 14 June 2005 — Australia’s Bradley McGee closed to just two seconds behind race leader Jan Ullrich in the Tour of Switzerland yesterday after winning the 154-km third stage from Abtwil to St. Anton in Austria.
The Francaise des Jeux rider beat Mirko Celestino of Italy and German Patrick Sinkewitz in a sprint finish after a group of 29 riders went clear on the climb of the Arlbergpass, close to the finish.
Ullrich finished twelfth in the same time as McGee and thanks to the 10-second time bonus awarded to stage winners, McGee is now only two seconds behind his German rival.
The stage victory was McGee’s second win in 2005 and the 17th win of his eight-year career. In 2004 he won an Olympic gold medal in the team pursuit event on the track.
“I’m very happy to have won the stage in a sprint,” McGee said.
“I came this race to win the time trial and so I was a little bit disappointed to finish second behind Jan Ullrich yesterday but winning today makes up for it. I felt pretty good on the climb and then played my chances in the sprint.”
McGee struggled with breathing problems in the spring but after working with an osteopath is now back in form. His big goal of the season is to be competitive in next month’s Tour de France and for the first time in his career he will be overall leader of the Francaise des Jeux team. Ullrich made his T-Mobile teamwork hard to defend his race leader’s yellow jersey but was unable to match McGee in the finishing sprint. “I did what I could to keep the race lead and it worked,” Ullrich said.
Today’s 208-km fourth stage is from Vaduz in Liechtenstein to Bad Zurzach in Switzerland.
