page_title: 2015 Tour of California
section_title: Stage 3
hierarchical_section_title: 2015 Tour of California / Stages / Stage 3
caption_attribution_description: Latviešu: Tour of California leader jersey, Toms Skujiņš, 2015
context_page_description: The 2015 Amgen Tour of California was the tenth edition of the Tour of California cycling stage race. It was held from May 10–17, and rated as a 2.HC event on the UCI America Tour. It began in Sacramento and finished in Pasadena.
  The race's general classification was won by Slovakian Peter Sagan by only three seconds over Frenchman Julian Alaphilippe, the closest winning margin in the race's history. Sagan also added two stages to his palmares, including the individual time trial. Colombian Sergio Henao completed the podium.
  The sprints competition was won by Briton Mark Cavendish, who also was the winner of four individual stages. The mountains classification jersey went to Italian Daniel Oss of BMC Racing Team, while Julian Alaphilippe took the best young rider's jersey and the queen stage 7. Team Sky was awarded the "best team" title. Latvian Toms Skujiņš of domestic team Hincapie Racing also won a stage and wore the leader's jersey for three stages.
context_section_description: 12 May  San Jose to San Jose, 105.7 mi (170.1 km)
  The third stage of the race featured only one intermediate sprint, contested in Livermore, then the climbing began. From that point on, there were six King of the Mountains prizes (four were category 4 and one was category 2), with the major one being the climb to Mount Hamilton, a "Hors Category" affair at 6.5 mi (10.5 km) for an average 7% gradient. One of the category 4 climb was situated at the end of the stage in San Jose where the finale featured 0.25 mi (0.4 km) at an average of 10%. The elevation gain for the stage was 10,200 ft (3,100 m).
  As they rolled out of the neutral zone, the temperatures were around 60 °F (15.6 °C) and the sun was out. Two riders didn't take the start of the stage: Warren Barguil of Team Giant–Alpecin and Tyler Magner of Hincapie Racing, both due to the crash that occurred the day before. The start of the event was very fast since a lot of riders wanted a chance to get the KOM points on offer during the stage. After 15 mi (24.1 km) of racing and numerous attempts at forming a breakaway, the pack was still together except those who had already been shed off the back thanks to the rapid pace. Travis Meyer (Drapac Professional Cycling) went first through the intermediate sprint as the composition of the leading group was still changing by the minute. Soon, Roy Curvers (Team Giant–Alpecin), Daniel Oss (BMC Racing Team), Jonathan Clarke (UnitedHealthcare), Evan Huffman (Team SmartStop), Oscar Clark and Toms Skujiņš (both with Hincapie Racing) joined Meyer and formed the break.
  Oss swept all three KOMs (Cat. 4) before Mount Hamilton. Midway through the stage, the gap to the escapees was hovering around 3:15 with the big mountain (HC) still to come. At the foot of the ascent of the behemoth, Toms Skujiņš accelerated away from his companions. Soon the gap grew and he was first at the KOM point, amassing 12 points. The peloton exploded as they tackled Mount Hamilton. The riders then negotiated the twisty descent on good tarmac. After the difficulty of the day, Peter Sagan suffered a mechanical incident but reintegrated the pack on a small non-categorized rise. The next KOM came shortly after the descent and was named Quimby (Cat. 2). Skujiņš won this KOM too and fell off his machine in a tight bend on the descent as he made contact with a protective haystack, but remounted straight away. With 12 mi (19.3 km) to cover, he still enjoyed an advantage of 2:30 on lone pursuer Oss and 4:00 over the reduced peloton.
  The main pack accelerated in damage control mode. With 7 mi (11.3 km) to go, the gap from the peloton to the lone breaker was still 3:30, with Tinkoff–Saxo doing some work along with the teams of the favorites in an effort to bring Skujiņš back. Laurens ten Dam of LottoNL–Jumbo was distanced and finished 7:25 from the winner. Skujiņš resisted on the flat run-in and on the short but steep climb at the end to claim the stage victory and the general classification jersey. A minute and six seconds later, Peter Sagan sprinted uphill to claim second place just a few meters in front of Frenchman Julian Alaphilippe of Etixx–Quick-Step. In all, the 23-year-old Skujiņš had raced 34 mi (54.7 km) solo to realize this performance. With the points on offer on the final climb, Skujiņš grabbed the best climber's jersey as well.
caption: Skujiņš' race leaders jersey
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