Stage 3: Patience, positioning...then pure power

Stage 3 was the so-called queen stage of the Lloyds Tour of Britain Women - although, looking at this race as a whole, it's actually quite difficult to pinpoint one true queen stage.

Stage 1 was the longest, tomorrow has more accumulated climbing, while today wasn't particularly long. But today had something none of the other stages offer: a proper uphill finish.

And that made it the clearest opportunity for the GC riders to take time.

For Kim Le Court-Pienaar, that opportunity was all she needed.

A race of attrition

The opening part of the stage was relatively uneventful. Rather than one decisive attack shaping the race, the first 70kms were simply relentless: up, down, narrow roads, steeper pitches and technical descents.

There were two QOM opportunities, with FDJ United-SUEZ's Lauren Dickson particularly intent on collecting points and strengthening her hold on that classification.

But the team that really caught my attention was Movistar.

Over the opening two stages, they hadn't been especially visible at the front. Today was completely different.

They took responsibility for making the race hard.

And that tells you a lot about their plan.

Liane Lippert was clearly their card for the uphill finish, and rather than waiting until the final climb, Movistar wanted fatigue in everyone's legs before they got there. They repeatedly set a strong tempo, particularly as the race became harder, gradually reducing the group from behind.

It wasn't spectacular attacking.

It was attrition.

And sometimes that's just as effective.

A little uncertainty at SD Worx-Protime

Normally, when you have the race leader, your team carries much of the responsibility for controlling the race.

Today, though, SD Worx-Protime were quite happy to let Movistar do a lot of that work.

There were also signs that they weren't completely convinced Lorena Wiebes would survive the uphill finish.

The intermediate sprint was particularly revealing.

Instead of Lorena being their obvious priority, it appeared she was helping set up Mischa Bredewold for the bonus seconds — an indication that SD Worx were already keeping another GC option alive.

Kim had other ideas.

She took maximum seconds ahead of Mischa and Lorena, continuing something we've seen from her throughout this race: she understands that in the Tour of Britain, every second matters.

Riders started disappearing

As the kilometres accumulated, the course began taking its toll.

There wasn't one enormous climb blowing the race apart. Riders simply started disappearing from the back.

One notable absence was UAE Team ADQ's Karlijn Swinkels, who had started the day well placed overall but was caught up in a crash approaching the second QOM.

Kate Courtney also became distanced at some point.

Kate is still relatively new to World Tour road racing after an extraordinary career in mountain biking, and I've been impressed by how naturally she's adapted to positioning and moving within the peloton. But today was the kind of course where those road-specific demands accumulate - narrow roads, constant changes in rhythm and technical descending.

Eventually, a group of roughly 25 riders established itself at the front.

SD Worx had numbers. Movistar had numbers. Canyon//SRAM were well represented.

AG Insurance-Soudal were still very much in the race too, with Kim well protected and Letizia Borghesi doing an important job alongside her deep into the final.

And that's where Kim's race became really interesting.

Sometimes sitting at the back is part of the plan

If you were watching Kim through the middle of today's stage, you might have wondered whether she was struggling.

She spent a surprising amount of time towards the back of the reduced group.

But knowing Kim, I saw it differently.

She was saving energy.

Kim is an incredibly savvy racer. She knows herself well, and after two hard, aggressive stages in difficult weather, today she appeared to make a conscious decision: don't waste anything unnecessarily.

Sitting slightly further back meant more shelter from the wind and less energy spent constantly fighting for position.

Crucially, Letizia Borghesi was almost always there with her.

That was important. Kim wasn't simply drifting backwards. She had a teammate monitoring and protecting her, and as the race approached the moments where positioning really mattered, she began moving forward.

That's the difference between being badly positioned and deliberately conserving energy.

Kim knew when she needed to be there.

The descent was almost as important as the climb

The finale was fascinating.

The riders first climbed towards roughly five kilometres to go, before a short plateau and then a fast, technical descent towards the bottom of the final 2.7km climb.

And that descent mattered enormously.

The entry onto the final climb came through a very sharp turn. If you arrived there in 20th position while the rider at the front attacked immediately, you could effectively be several seconds behind before you'd even exited the corner.

Lidl-Trek understood that.

After a great lead-out on the climb from Riejanne Markus, Ricarda Bauernfeind took over on the descent, driving the pace with young rider classification leader Fleur Moors just behind her and stretching the group into one long line.

But look just behind them.

There was Kim.

After spending so much of the stage quietly sitting further back, suddenly, when positioning mattered most, she was third wheel.

She hadn't wasted energy fighting for the front all day.

She'd saved it for exactly this moment.

And then she went all in

As they turned onto the final climb, Kim attacked almost immediately.

It was the perfect place to commit.

Unlike attacking 50kms from the finish, there was no tactical gamble involved anymore. This was the one finish in this year's race where a GC rider could simply go all in and know that if she had the legs, there wasn't enough road left for everything to come back together.

Kim opened a gap immediately.

Behind, Liane Lippert emerged as the strongest challenger.

Movistar had spent the entire day preparing this moment for her. Teammate after teammate had sacrificed their own chances to make the race hard, and that can give a leader an incredible extra source of motivation when the moment finally arrives.

Liane fought hard.

But Kim was stronger.

She didn't necessarily look comfortable. She was in and out of the saddle, visibly suffering and throwing everything she had into maintaining the advantage.

But that's Kim.

She doesn't need it to look pretty.

She just keeps fighting.

And today that delivered a stage victory - 13 seconds ahead of Liane.

The smartest ride of the day

For me, the most impressive part wasn't simply Kim's attack.

It was everything she did before it.

Movistar raced visibly. They used their strength in numbers and spent much of the day controlling the front.

Kim raced almost invisibly.

She collected bonus seconds when they were available. She sheltered when she could. She trusted Letizia. She moved forward when the race demanded it. And when she reached the one point on the course where there was nowhere left to hide, she committed completely.

That's intelligent racing.

Lorena Wiebes deserves huge credit too.

For a pure sprinter to finish tenth on an uphill finish like this, only 37 seconds behind Kim, once again shows just how complete she's become.

But today finally exposed a terrain where her sprint couldn't save her.

And the GC has changed completely.

A different challenge for AG Insurance-Soudal

Kim takes the leader's jersey into Stage 4, with Liane Lippert now her closest challenger.

And from here, the nature of the race changes.

Until today, AG Insurance-Soudal could race with freedom and look for opportunities. From tomorrow, they'll be defending the leader's jersey, which naturally changes the dynamic.

We've already seen how strong Kim has been individually, and how important Letizia Borghesi has been deep into the finals. Now the team will need to use all of its resources carefully as rivals such as SD Worx-Protime and Movistar look for ways to apply pressure.

Tomorrow's stage is another relentless one. The hardest climbing comes relatively early, but there's plenty of undulating terrain afterwards and enough opportunity for teams to try something from distance.

That's what makes this race so interesting now.

Today, Kim Le Court-Pienaar rode an incredibly smart race to take the lead.

Tomorrow, AG Insurance-Soudal get the chance to show how they defend it.

— Ashleigh