Advertisement
Laurent Cipriani/AP/Press Association Images
Tour de France

Sprint finish: everything you need to know about today’s stage of Le Tour

Crashes, conflict and celebrations. There sure was plenty to talk about on today’s third stage of the Tour de France.

Result: PETER SAGAN CONTINUED his blistering start to his debut Tour, taking today’s third stage by several metres ahead of Edvald Boasson Hagen and Peter Velits. Fabian Cancellara was fourth over the line to hold on to his yellow jersey and his seven-second advantage over Bradley Wiggins and Sylvain Chavanel in the general classification standings.

Here’s how it happened: There was no shortage of drama as the peloton crossed the border for the first French stage of the 2012 Tour, a 197km jaunt from Orchies to Boulogne-sur-Mer. For the third time in as many stages, Michael Morkov set the early pace and was joined by Andriy Grivko, Giovanni Bernaudeau, Ruben Moreno and Sebastien Minard in a five-man breakaway.

Sagan, winner of Sunday’s first stage, found himself caught up in the day’s first crash with about 50km to go before a major pile-up on a narrow stretch took Kanstantsin Sivtsov, Tyler Farrar and about 15 other riders out of the equation. While Sivtsov abandoned the race and the others regrouped, tempers flared at the front of the peloton as Jose Gutierrez tried to lead his Movistar team-mates in an opportunistic attack.

Grivko and Morkov were finally reeled in on the day’s penultimate climb, setting the stage for Sylvain Chavanel to mount an attack of his own with 4km remaining. But the Frenchman went too soon and was caught in the final kilometre as Sagan picked him off to take his second stage win.

The big winner: Peter Sagan. The Slovak youngster extended his lead in the race for the green jersey with a brilliant finish, and even had time to do a funky celebratory dance as he crossed the line. Not sure how that showmanship will go down with his fellow riders…

The big loser: Team Sky and, in particular, Sivtsov who became the first of this year’s peloton to abandon the race. The Belarusian was one of several riders caught up in a crash just after the Cote de l’Eperche and called it quits not long afterwards. That won’t help the team’s GC ambitions but they’ll count themselves slightly fortunate not to have lost time after Bradley Wiggins, Michael Rogers and Chris Froome all got caught up behind a crash close to the finish.

What about the Irish? An excellent day for Nicolas Roche who was at the front end of the sprint finish and came home in seventh place with a time one second slower than Sagan. Not so good for Daniel Martin who was caught up in one of the day’s many crashes and could only manage to finish 105th, 5:05 behind Sagan. He slips down to 87th in the GC standings while Roche moves up to 20th.

So what happens tomorrow then? We’re back on the flat for stage four which takes the peloton on a 214.5km trip from Abbeville to Rouen.