Behind them, Swiss riders Konny Looser and Oliver Zurbrügg from the BiXS Pro Team put up a tough fight with Austrian Christoph Soukup and Swiss rider Michael Stünzi from Team Texpa-Simplon. The BiXS Pro Team narrowly won the battle and rode to the finish line in second place, just 15 seconds ahead of Texpa-Simplon. Centurion-Vaude continues to lead the overall classification with a lead of around seven minutes over the Looser/Zurbrügg duo, closely followed by Texpa-Simplon. It remains exciting.

The women also fought a tough duel in the difficult conditions. In the end, Switzerland's Ariane Lüthi and Belgium's Alice Pirard, Team Spur-Wallonie, won the stage in 2:53.00 hours - but with a lead of just over 20 seconds over Team Meerendal-CBC with Switzerland's Esther Süss and Sweden's Jennie Stenerhag, who retained the overall lead.

Increasing tension in the flow race

The previously outstanding Belgians Frans Claes and Michiel van Aelbroeck are also the fastest on the shortened third stage. Not much changes behind them. The "Flying Rotor" team with René Wildhaber and Alex Fiva can't do much against the pedaling power of the Belgians. They also finish the fourth day in second place, ahead of Philipp Imdorf and Roman Rohrer from the "PoliBau - Zürich Versicherungen" team.

The Australians bring more excitement to the race in the mixed team: John Laughlin and Jodie Willett win the stage and also catch up in the overall standings, where they are only twelve seconds behind the leading team "Peskindol - Vojo Mag" with Tim Jacobs and Kristien Achten. Once again, Team Schwalbe with Felix Schäfermeier and Cristina Dähler rode to third place.

From tomorrow, the Perskindol-Swiss-Epic field will be almost doubled: from stages four and five, the participants in the short formats "Epic 2 Day" and "Epic 2 Day Flow" will also be riding.

Full ranking lists stage 3

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