Twenty-year-old Davide Donati won his first professional victory on stage 3 of the Tour de Wallonie, winning a hectic sprint with a late surge down the middle.
Donati is part of the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe Rookies development team but is riding the Tour de Wallonie as a guest with the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe WorldTour team.
He beat Milan Fretin (Cofidis) and Anders Foldager (Jayco-AlUla) in the sprint. Stage 1 winner Corbin Strong (Israel-Premier Tech) was fourth.
"I found the right wheels in the final and am now very proud of what I have achieved: my first professional victory! I will now try to enjoy the moment as much as possible," Donati said in a team statement.
Stage 2 winner Oliver Knight of Cofidis, who today agreed to a new contract for 2026 and 2027 with the French team, kept the race lead for another stage.
Eddy Le Huitouze (Groupama-FDJ), Henri-François Renard-Haquin (Wagner Bazin WB) and Rasmus Wallin (Uno-X Mobility) formed the early break of the stage but were kept under control by Israel-Premier Tech, riding for Strong and a sprint finish.
When the race came back together, Mathias Vacek (Lidl-Trek) shook the peloton with 17km to go, attacking on the cobbled climb in Antoing. The Czech National Champion swept up the bonus seconds and split the peloton.
He was joined by a selection of 11 other riders including teammate Alex Kirsch, Strong and Tom Van Asbroeck (Israel-Premier Tech), Toon Aerts (Lotto) and Kim Heiduk (Ineos Grenadiers).
Their gap was often less than a few hundred metres but the breakaways attacked each other in the final kilometres, favouring the chase. Van den Bossche and Rivera were the last to attack in the final kilometre but were caught in sight of the line.
Fretin seemed the favourite for the sprint but was boxed in as riders crashed behind him. The chaos allowed Donati to find a line through and emerge down the middle of the road.
He hit the line first and had time to raise his arms in a mix of celebration and surprise.
"Our primary goal was to protect Roger Adria. But then the team gave me the opportunity to sprint. And I didn't want to let that opportunity slip by," Donati said.
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