Jolien D'hoore (Boels-Dolmans) won stage 3 of the OVO Energy Women's Tour. The racing was overshadowed by a mass crash that took out overall leader Marianne Vos (CCC-Liv), who was forced to abandon the race, and caused a neutralisation while the race doctor was attending to the crashed riders. In the sprint finish at Blenheim Palace, D'hoore beat Lisa Brennauer (WNT-Rotor) and Demi Vollering (Parkhotel Valkenburg) to the win. With Vos out of the race, Brennauer is the new GC leader. Starting in Henley-on-Thames, the peloton faced 145.1 kilometres to the finish on the grounds of Blenheim Palace. The first 21km included two mountain sprints at the second category Pishill and first category Britwell Hill before the terrain flattened out somewhat. Christine Majerus (Boels-Dolmans) was first over Pishill, adding to her lead in the QOM classification.ADVERTISEMENT Anna Plichta (Trek-Segafredo) attacked soon after that and crested Britwell Hill with a 55-second advantage. Majerus, Grace Brown (Mitchelton-Scott), and Katarzyna Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM) briefly formed a chase group that reduced the gap to 28 seconds before being reeled in by the peloton. Reluctant to catch Plichta this early, the peloton allowed the Polish soloist to extend her lead to over a minute. She rolled through the first intermediate sprint in Wallingford after 56.4km, the remaining bonus seconds going to Coryn Rivera (Team Sunweb) and Vos in the peloton. Plichta also won the second intermediate sprint in Didcot nine kilometres later, but the peloton suffered a mass crash on the downhill into the town that stopped the race completely.
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