Peter Sagan has had a difficult time that does not stop, but winning the third stage of the Tour de Suisse gives him reason for optimism. The three-time world champion last won the Around Slovakia stage race last September, but after joining the Total Energie team he has yet to claim a single triumph. So far.

In the burst of the third stage in the town of Grenchen, he covered the last hundred meters of third place. It seemed too early, but the other sprinters fell asleep and Bryan Coquard’s quick arrival came too late. “It’s hard for me to get back to my old form because I was sick and didn’t race for three months. It just takes time,” Sagan said after the stage.

How was the scene?

Six refugees were the first to make it to the watchmaking town of Grenchen, where the Tour of Switzerland peloton visited for the third time in its nearly 90-year history. The most famous name? Philip Gilbert. The best mountaineer, at least according to the classification of the race? Quinn Simmons. But someone else had the most stamina.

Local team Stefan Bissegger, who despite being 23 are already among the feared timekeepers and won a stage in Switzerland a year ago, were longing for another triumph on their home roads. That would suit him too, as his season this year is certainly not as dazzling as last year, as is his EF Education First-EasyPost team.

The American team is fighting for its survival in the WorldTour and still has to worry about the place among the top eighteen teams in the UCI ranking (along with BikeExchange, Israel-Premier Tech and Lotto Soudal). That’s why team principal Jonathan Vaughters was enthused during the stage by news from France, where his proteges Ruben Guerreiro and Esteban Chaves won the Mont Ventoux Dénivelé Challenge, a race with two climbs to the famous Wind Mountain.

Bissegger was able to add another valuable triumph and was the last of the refugees to resist the pressure of the peloton. In the Swiss heat wave, he tried it, but eleven kilometers from the finish at the center of Montre, his time at the head of the stage was over. One of the riders in the still very numerous peloton had to claim victory in the sprint.

And that driver is Peter Sagan, who clearly won the finish ahead of the fast, but also late, approaching Bryan Coquard. On the contrary, the stage ended uncomfortably for the second man in order, Maximilian Schachmann, who fell four kilometers from the finish and did not catch up with the racing peloton.