Simon Dalby dominates second Peace Race stage as Antoine Huby takes overall lead
Among the home Czech riders, Pavel Novak (18) finished in fifth position, 13 seconds behind the winner. Karel Camrda (22), ninth, also made it into the top 10.
Frenchman Pierre Gautherat (20), the winner of the two opening stages, was not able to keep up with the pace of the peloton in the hills and dropped down the order.
"It's been a good race for France so far and now we will concentrate as a whole team on keeping the yellow jersey," Gautherat said.
From the start, several riders tried to break the field and eventually a five-rider breakaway emerged, which included the top climber in the polka-dot jersey, Mike Schuch (20) of the Netherlands. The riders had a lead of as much as three minutes, but the climb to Premyslov changed the situation. Slovak Samuel Kovac (20) was the first to drop out, while Belgian Floris Van Tricht (21) broke away from everyone.
But after a while everything was different. At the start of the steep climb in the rain to Dlouhe strane, Frenchman Huby and Italian Simone Raccani (22) were in the lead, but they too failed to complete their breakaway. So it was Dalby of Denmark who had the most power on the final climb, overtaking Huby in the final sprint. Afonso Eulalio (21) of Portugal was third at the finish.
"It was very hard today, it was very uphill at the end," said Novak at the finish.
"But our team worked well together, so I'm happy for today's result. The first two were already quite far from us, it was impossible to go down, we were on the floor," said the best Czech rider, who was involved in a mass crash on Friday's first stage and is now 40th in the overall standings.
"I'm a bit bruised, but it's okay," he assured.