It was a stage of drama this time. Stage 3 of the Tour, from Orchies
to Boulognes-sur-Mer, had all the pains and troubles of the past few
days but without the redeeming features. Crashes, abandons, myriad
punctures and some rainclouds lent a distinctly gloomy air to the day’s
racing which stayed right up to the tense finish.
Ironically, it wasn’t until this fourth day of racing that the Tour de France
finally reached France. Unlike yesterday, the riders were eager to get
away today, the successful breakaway forming just four or five
kilometres in. The apparent breakaway specialist of the 2012 Tour,
Saxobank-Tinkoff Bank’s Michael Morkov, was quick to jump on the escape attempt of Ruben Perez Moreno (Euskaltel-Euskadi), along with AG2R La Mondiale’s Sebastien Minard, Europcar’s Giovanni Bernardeau and Andriy Grivko
of Astana. Some fast riding saw the quintet reach a maximum gap of
5’40” after half an hour, before settling into the three-minute lead it
would remain for much of the stage.
In the unfortunate characteristic of the stage, the next decisive event was a crash. Janez Brajkovic
of Astana was the biggest name sitting on the road, thankfully needing
no more than a flying visit to the race doctor’s car for a leg wound to
continue on. Going through the feed zone, the tense peloton began to
calm down again, gradually directing its energies towards the next event
– the intermediate sprint point.
Suddenly the GreenEDGE express appeared at the front of the peloton,
intimidating in their determination to put sprinter Matt Goss over the
line first. The sprint train which the Australians had been practising
was working like a charm, pulling the peloton along like a cat on a ball
of string, until a slower turn by one of the riders allowed Lotto Belisol
to sprint up alongside and the train fell apart. All turned to chaos
as other sprinters saw their chance and bolted for the sprint line, Kenny van Hummel (Vacansoleil-DCM) controversially swerving to block Mark Cavendish (Sky Procycling) as they went for the line. Cavendish wasn’t too adversely affected, leading van Hummel, Peter Sagan (Liquigas-Cannondale), Brett Lancaster (Orica-GreenEDGE) and Yauheni Hutarovich (FDJ-Bigmat) over the line to fill the top 10 places.
Sprint over, the peloton began to relax again, while out the front
the breakaway was approaching the first climb of the day, the Category 4
Côte l’Éperche with one point on offer, which Morkov was eager to claim
in defence of his polka-dot jersey. A few minutes behind, the peloton
had followed the five riders over the climb before disaster struck
again. A second crash with 54 kilometres to go left more riders on the
ground, one of Bradley Wiggins’ Sky teammates quickly attracting attention. Hurt and struggling, Kanstantin Sivtsov was forced to abandon the Tour on just the 3rd stage, leaving Wiggins and Team Sky already one man short.
Oblivious to the carnage behind, the breakaway began the next climb
of the day, Grivko upping the pace just enough that Bernardeau, riding
his first Tour de France, couldn’t follow and fell off the back of the
group. Morkov led the remaining three escapees over the Category 3 to
bolster his lead in the King of the Mountains classification, but back
in the peloton the carnage just kept coming. Yet another crash left Orica-GreenEDGE stage hopeful Simon Gerrans brushing off his knicks after a cannonball into a barbed-wire fence, while Movistar sprinter José Joaquín Rojas
became the second abandon of the Tour. Meanwhile the crash at the
peloton’s rear had fractured the peloton into several groups on the
road, with Gerrans and BMC stage favourite Philippe Gilbert trapped in the group almost a minute behind the rest of the bunch.
Up the front Grivko and Morkov had left their companions for dead on
the next Category 4 climb, racing each other to the top for the KOM
points, again added to Morkov’s burgeoning total. The pair continued to
go it alone as the shrunken peloton behind them swallowed first
Bernardeau and then Minard and Perez Moreno, reducing the gap to less
than a minute. The leading duo made it over the fourth climb of the
day, Morkov collecting the point again and earning himself the Fighting
Spirit award for his tenacity, before Grivko dropped him on the
second-last climb and went it alone, leaving Morkov to the mercy of the
peloton.
But the peloton could smell a chance at the stage now, hunting down Grivko to have its own shot at stage win glory. Ivan Basso (Liquigas-Cannondale) and Tony Gallopin (Radioshack-Nissan-Trek) led the select group of riders over the penultimate climb, before French time trial champion Sylvain Chavanel
of Omega Pharma – Quickstep shot off the front of the group and began a
solo ride to the finish. A skilled descender, Chavanel built up a
small lead, but the peloton weren’t giving away the victory that easily,
hauling him back just a kilometre from the finish.
Despite the crashes of earlier in the day, not all riders were paying
attention on the sweep into the finish, heading straight into the fence
as they missed a corner or crashing on the final uphill approach to the
finish. Amongst the chaos Peter Sagan brought his newfound uphill
sprinting abilities into play, making another unique salute as he rolled
across the line for another stage victory. The 22-year-old Slovak
tightened his lead on the green jersey, now 42 points ahead of nearest
challenger, yellow jersey wearer Fabian Cancellara (Radioshack-Nissan-Trek). In a nice twist, 7th place on the stage went to AG2R La Mondiale’s Nicolas Roche, a good present for the Irishman, who turns 28 today.
Stage 4 is another flat stage for the sprinters which could turn out
to be yet another Sagan Playground or could instead bring Mark Cavendish
out to play. Here’s to hoping the course profile belies the mood of
the day and we have an ‘up’ day instead of a flat one.
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