Brady Gilmore, who won yesterday’s stage in Musanze, proved his dominance once again with another sprint victory at the 17th Tour du Rwanda.
The Australian rider from Israel-Premier Tech confidently claimed the top spot for the second day in a row. Today’s stage, however, presented a different challenge—a demanding mountainous circuit around Rubavu, tackled twice. While the tough terrain could have been daunting, Gilmore has shown has been completely confident since the start of this 17th Tour du Rwanda on Sunday in Kigali.
The selection had been made during the first lap, and the first group had been reduced to 19 riders, the strongest having already revealed themselves for the future final classification. We had seen Rwandans again from the start of the stage in Musanze with Didier Munyaneza (Rwanda National Team), Etienne Tuyizere (Java-Inovotec) and Samuel Niyonkuru (Amani Team) on the attack along with the Ethiopian ZerAbruk Debay.
But this day was already important for the favourites in the general classification who wanted to take up position. In the final, we saw the Eritreans attacking for Henok Mulueberhan, but also the Total Energies riders for the yellow jersey Fabien Doubey, who even attacked just before the finish line before being caught up with 200 metres from the line by the rocket Gilmore, who left his opponents no chance.
In the general classification, Fabien Doubey is still the leader but the positions are still very close, with 16 riders classified in less than a minute.
Tomorrow the 4th stage will be short but punctuated by three big climbs from Rubavu to Karongi tackling a distance of 95,1km.
