Milan Fretin (Cofidis, Belgium) won stage 3 of the Tour of Guangxi, from Jingxi to Bama, on Thursday 15 October 2026: it is his first win in a World Tour race. In a messy sprint he beat Frits Biesterbos (Team Picnic Postnl), who takes the red leader’s jersey with second place. Jordi Meeus (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) was third, Fabio Jakobsen (Team Visma | Lease A Bike) fourth.
The stage was decided by a pedal. Paul Magnier (Soudal Quick-Step), who led the race and had the best lead-out train, finished 21st and lost the jersey without losing a second.
The longest stage of the Tour of Guangxi
Jingxi–Bama is the longest stage of the race: 211.9 km with 2,087 metres of climbing. It starts at 735 metres above sea level and finishes at 229, in Shouxiang square, after a route that rolls almost all the way. The highest point is at 781 metres. The start was at 11:00 local time, with the finish expected between 15:48 and 16:14.
The first intermediate sprint with bonuses is at kilometre 38.7, on Desheng street, at 639 metres. The second is at kilometre 112.4, in front of the Tiandong county revolutionary martyrs’ cemetery, at 111 metres of altitude, 99.5 km from the finish. In between, the road drops by more than 500 metres.
Bama was not new to the Tour of Guangxi: the race had also finished there in 2024, on stage 3, won by Ethan Vernon (Israel-Premier Tech).
The stage’s two climbs in numbers
The first climb is the second-category King of the Mountains point on the G243 national road. It measures 6.0 km at an average 4.2%, with 253 metres of climbing between 243 and 496 metres of altitude. The summit is 62.6 km from the finish.
The last is a third-category climb, on the same road: 1.9 km at 6.0%, 114 metres of climbing, from 389 to 503 metres of altitude. The summit is 28.7 km from the line. From there to Bama the road loses 274 metres.
Three men in the break, the last caught 20 km out
Three went clear early on: Jasha Sütterlin (Team Jayco Alula), Tobias Bayer (Alpecin-Premier Tech) and Ruidong Wang, of the Chinese national team. Wang pushed hardest on the climbs and earned the mountains jersey, with 12 points. Bayer is third in that classification with 10 points, Sütterlin fifth with 5.
The three had a maximum lead of about three minutes. Soudal Quick-Step and Decathlon CMA CGM led the chase to set up the sprint, at a pace high enough to discourage the attacks the rolling finale would have allowed. Wang pressed on alone and was the last to be caught, with 20 km to go.
Magnier loses a pedal at 150 metres
In the final kilometres the trains took turns at the front. XDS Astana went to the front too early, and Soudal Quick-Step took advantage to bring Magnier into the ideal position. His team-mates let him go 150 metres from the line.
The sprint opens up across the full width of the road
The entry into Bama is on a wide road, and the sprint opened up from one side to the other, leaving no room for real organisation. Many started early and were left exposed to the wind. As Magnier opened his sprint, his right foot came out of the pedal and his speed vanished: the bunch swallowed him up and he pounded his handlebars with his fists.
Fretin went up the right-hand side of the road and held off Biesterbos by a whisker. Meeus took third place. Jakobsen had been out of sight for most of the finale, then his team brought him forward at the right moment. He had to brake hard just before the line and lost momentum, but fourth place is his first notable result in Visma colours.
Kooij stays out of the sprint
The first 40 riders were given the same time as Fretin. Olav Kooij (Decathlon CMA CGM), the most anticipated sprinter, did not manage to contest the sprint. His team and Soudal Quick-Step had pulled the bunch for hours, and got little out of the sprint.
Fretin takes his first World Tour win
Fretin is 25 and already had nine wins, none of them in a World Tour race. Thursday’s is his fourth of 2026, after the third stage of the Vuelta a Andalucia Ruta Ciclista Del Sol (20 February, 2.Pro) and stages 1 and 4 of the TPC en Nouvelle-Aquitaine (25 and 28 August, 2.1).
His season counts 65 race days, 6 podiums and 19 top-ten finishes. In 2025 he had won the Clasica de Almeria (16 February), stage 4 of the Volta ao Algarve (22 February) and the Ronde van Limburg (16 April).
The fagIAno was backing Kooij and Magnier
Before the start our model gave 89.2% to the bunch sprint. The break had 9.0%, and a finish among the general classification men 1.8%. The sprint came, but the favourites did not.
Kooij was the favourite at 29.8%, followed by Magnier at 26.5%: neither finished in the top ten. Meeus, third, had 9.5%: he is the only one of our top three favourites to make the podium.
Max Kanter (XDS Astana) was given 5.3% and finished 20th. Arvid De Kleijn (Tudor Pro Cycling Team), at 2.4%, was fifth. Fretin was at 1.8%, eighth on our list: a win against the forecasts.
Biesterbos in the red jersey, level on time with Magnier
Biesterbos, who had already won stage 2, leads the general classification on the same time as Magnier, the leader until Wednesday. On equal time the stage placings count, and there the Dutchman is ahead. Both have 16″ in bonuses.
Kanter, third, has 6” in bonuses. The top ten of the general classification are within 12 seconds, and they include Neilson Powless and Jhonatan Narvaez, who are not sprinters.
Biesterbos also has the points jersey with 25, level with Magnier, and the young riders’ jersey. The mountains belong to Wang. In the team classification NSN Cycling Team lead, ahead of Groupama-Fdj United and Team Picnic Postnl.
A race won by a few seconds
In 2025 the Tour of Guangxi was won by Paul Double (Team Jayco Alula), 15” ahead of Victor Lafay. Before him came Lennert van Eetvelt (2024, 5”), Milan Vader (2023, 6”), Enric Mas (2019, 5”), Gianni Moscon (2018, 9”) and Tim Wellens (2017, 6”).
The race was not held from 2020 to 2022. In the six editions raced from 2017 to 2025 the final margin was at most 15 seconds.
The Italians: Matteo Milan 11th and Agostinacchio 12th
The best Italian is Matteo Milan (Groupama-Fdj United), 11th with the same time as the winner. Right behind is Mattia Agostinacchio (EF Education-Easypost), 12th at 19 years old. Then Manlio Moro (Movistar Team) 22nd and Matteo Moschetti (Pinarello-Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team) 23rd.
Andrea Bagioli (Lidl-Trek) is 37th, Alessandro Pinarello (NSN Cycling Team) 89th, Davide Formolo (Movistar Team) 107th and Samuele Battistella (EF Education-Easypost) 133rd: all with the bunch’s time. Daniel Skerl (Bahrain Victorious) lost 17”.
In the general classification Milan is 17th, 16″ behind Biesterbos. He is also the best Italian in the young riders’ classification, fifth, and in the points, 18th with 5 points.
On Friday stage 4 goes to Tian’e with 2,679 metres of climbing
Stage 4, from Bama to Tian’e, is 164.6 km long and starts at 05:00 Italian time. It has four categorised climbs on the G243 national road, all far from the finish, which is not uphill.
The first is second-category: 6.3 km at 3.7%, with the summit 133.3 km from the line. Then a third-category one (8.6 km at 3.3%, summit at 114.1 km) and another second-category, the hardest: 8.2 km at 4.8%, 396 metres of climbing, up to 900 metres of altitude, with the summit 85.0 km from the finish. The last is third-category: 7.8 km at 3.8%, up to 1,061 metres, 52.3 km from the end.
For the overall win, before the start the fagIAno’s favourites were Juan Ayuso (16.0%), Tom Pidcock (9.7%) and Maxim van Gils (6.5%).
The stage top ten
| # | Rider | Team | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Milan Fretin | Cofidis | 4h31’55” |
| 2 | Frits Biesterbos | Team Picnic Postnl | s.t. |
| 3 | Jordi Meeus | Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe | s.t. |
| 4 | Fabio Jakobsen | Team Visma | Lease A Bike | s.t. |
| 5 | Arvid De Kleijn | Tudor Pro Cycling Team | s.t. |
| 6 | Juan Sebastian Molano Benavides | UAE Team Emirates XRG | s.t. |
| 7 | Joshua Giddings | Lotto Intermarché | s.t. |
| 8 | Erlend Blikra | Uno-X Mobility | s.t. |
| 9 | Brady Gilmore | NSN Cycling Team | s.t. |
| 10 | Cyril Barthe | Groupama-Fdj United | s.t. |
General classification after stage 3
| # | Rider | Team | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Frits Biesterbos | Team Picnic Postnl | 11h17’21” |
| 2 | Paul Magnier | Soudal Quick-Step | s.t. |
| 3 | Max Kanter | XDS Astana Team | +10″ |
| 4 | Sam Welsford | Netcompany Ineos | +10″ |
| 5 | Jasha Sütterlin | Team Jayco Alula | +10″ |
| 6 | Fredrik Dversnes | Uno-X Mobility | +10″ |
| 7 | Jordi Meeus | Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe | +12″ |
| 8 | Olav Kooij | Decathlon CMA CGM Team | +12″ |
| 9 | Neilson Powless | EF Education-Easypost | +12″ |
| 10 | Jhonatan Narvaez | UAE Team Emirates XRG | +12″ |
The race in numbers
- Average speed
- 46.8 km/h 211.9 km in 4h31’55”, the winner’s time.
- Weather at the finish
- 31–32 °C No rain; in Bama, from 14:00 to 17:00 local time.
- Wind at the finish
- 12–17 km/h From the south, gusts of up to 40 km/h; over the same hours.
- Selection index
- 0 out of 100 Of 147 finishers: 136 within 30 seconds of the winner, 145 within 2 minutes, all within 10 minutes (him included). It runs from 0, a bunch sprint, to 98, a solo finish.
Story written with the help of Mnemosyne.
Sources
- Results and times: UCI, official results.
- Cyclingnews, “Tour of Guangxi: Milan Fretin pips Biesterbos to stage 3 victory after well-placed Paul Magnier unclips during sprint”.
- WielerFlits, “Milan Fretin snelt in Tour of Guangxi naar allereerste zege op WorldTour-niveau”.
- Weather: Open-Meteo (CC BY 4.0).
- Photo: Nicola, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
