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Cancellara lives up to the jersey
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In a stunning display of tactics, courage and pure power, race leader Fabian Cancellara timed his jump to perfection, overtaking a four-man breakaway with 500 meters to go and then holding off the hard charging sprinters to win stage 3 of the Tour de France Tuesday.
It was the third career Tour stage victory for the reigning world time-trial champion, and it also solidified the CSC rider's grip on the yellow jersey that he took following the prologue in London on Saturday. With a 20 second time bonus for the win, Cancellara extended his lead over Astana's Andreas Klöden to 33 seconds, with David Millar (Saunier Duval-Prodir) third at 0:41.
Eric Zabel (Milram) and Danilo Napolitano (Lampre-Fondital) completed the top three of the 236.5km stage, which started more than six and a half hours earlier in Waregem, Belgium, and finished across the border in France at Compiègne.
“That was the hardest last kilometer of my life," said Cancellara. “I was asking myself, ‘Should I hang on for a sprint?’ I escaped the peloton over the cobblestones [near the finish]. To win in this way, at Compiegne where the Paris-Roubaix begins, is perfect. There's no other word to describe it.”
“All I thought about was being in the best possible position at the end," he continued. "If you're in a good position you can do a good sprint. I looked to see who was to my left and right, I don't know where I attacked from, but you can't plan for anything like that. Today it just all fell into place.”
Cancellara and the rest of the field spent most of the day chasing a breakaway initiated by Frenchmen Nicolas Vogondy (Agritubel) and Matthieu Ladagnous (Française des Jeux), who peeled off the front just 6km into the longest stage of this year's Tour. The duo finally got some company at the 52.5km-to-go mark, when Stephan Auge (Cofidis) and Frederik Willems (Liquigas) bridged across to join in the effort.
The foursome worked well from there, and it looked like they might stay away as they were still off the front when they sailed under the 1km-to-bannner. But a brief tactical hesitation combined with Cancellara's massive burst caught the break flat-footed. All they could do was watch him blow by.
That left the chase to Zabel and the rest of the sprinters, who came up just short. At the line Cancellara shot his hands in the air, completing a roller-coaster stage that gyrated from sleep-inducing to scintillating.
With Monday's deadly spate of crashes still fresh in the their minds, the peloton spent the early portions of Tuesday on a glorified group ride. In the first four hours the average speed was a pedestrian 32kph, and at one point the field was an hour behind the slowest expected time.
That sluggish pace allowed a two-man breakaway of Vogondy and Ladagnous to roll off the front, and their advantage quickly ballooned, reaching a whopping 14 minutes at the 45km mark.
There was little concern back in the bunch, which spread out across the road rolling along the pan-flat route from southern Belgium into northern France. Rumors that Paris-Roubaix pavé would be included proved to be just that, but the stage did pass through many of the villages made famous by the spring classic, including Fontaineau-Bois, the hometown of former Tour race director Jean-Marie Leblanc, who watched from the sidelines as the peloton passed. Like Paris-Roubaix, this day was almost completely flat, with just the category 4 Cote de Blérancourt offering serious pedaling resistance.
The peloton lost its second rider before the start in Waregem after Thomas Vaitkus (Discovery Channel) was forced to drop out with a broken thumb. The Lithuanian, a former world under-23 time-trial champion (2002) and a Giro d'Italia stage winner (2006), was among the dozens of riders caught up in the crash caused by Zabel on Monday with 2.5km to go. That left 188 riders in the field.
According to Discovery team director Johan Bruyneel, Vaitkus had surgery Monday night to mend five fractures. Bruyneel also reported that George Hincapie was feeling fine Tuesday morning a day after finishing the stage with a bloodied right knee.
With 140.5km to go the gap was down to 7:50, but the field was maintaining its leisurely pace, spread wide across the road. Race leader Cancellara was also caught up in Monday's melee, but he was back in the bunch Tuesday, chatting away with stage 1 winner Robbie McEwen.
The injury report wasn't so kind to American Freddie Rodriguez, who got 10 stitches in his arm Monday night. On Tuesday, the Predictor-Lotto rider vented his frustrations with what he termed a lack of concern for safety on the part of Tour organizers, calling on them to choose safer finishing circuits for sprinters. Some of his displeasure surely stemmed from the fact that Rodriguez crashed out of last year's Tour after hitting a pothole and crashing on his face on stage 3 into Valkenburg in the Netherlands.
"It was like we were going into a funnel," Rodriguez told reporters before stage 3. "We should be on wider roads that close to the finish."
The carnage continued Tuesday when stage 2 winner Gert Steegmans (Quick Step-Innergetic) bumped the back wheel of Alexandre Botcharov (Crédit Agricole) after he tapped a sidewalk on a narrow bridge. Neither rider was seriously injured, and Steegmans rejoined the bunch after getting his scraped left knee attended to by the race doctor.
With 50.5km to go, Auge and Willems shot off the front, getting barely a glance from the field. Auge entered the day tied with Millar in the KoM standings, but Millar won the tiebreaker because he was higher on GC. Auge was hoping to steal the polka-dot jersey from the Scot, grabbing points on the day's lone climb.
Two kilometers later Auge and Willems pulled alongside Vogondy and Ladagnous, bringing some much-needed horsepower to the long breakaway. Back in the bunch the speed picked up with CSC and Crédit Agricole upping the pace, stringing out the field and cutting their deficit to 3:00.
Meanwhile, Millar seemed resigned to losing the KoM jersey and never sent his team to the front. The only hope he had was for Auge to finish fourth of four on the climb, but the Frenchman crested the narrow, tree-lined climb first, vaulting himself into the climber's jersey by three points over Millar.
Auge, Willems, Vogondy and Ladagnous quickly reorganized over the top of the climb, intent on keeping the field at bay. At 21km to go the gap remained at 2:36. Finally Predictor-Lotto, Quick Step and Crédit Agricole sent more riders to the front, and even Discovery's Levi Leipheimer inched toward the head of the field, knowing this was the time when crashes might occur.
With 16km to go the gap was down to 2:00, and 6km later it was 1:30. But the Belgian Willems launched several attacks to keep the break rolling. When the foursome came past the 1km banner, it looked like the field had mistimed its final charge. And in truth, all of them - save for Cancellara - had done just that. Had it not been for some last-minute jockeying for position among the four breakout riders, which caused a disruption in their pace, one of them would have likely taken the stage.
The Tour de France continues Wednesday with stage 4's 193km rolling ride from Villers-Cotterêts to Joigny. The route will bring racers through the Champagne and Brie regions to the east of Paris.
Until the final 18km, the stage will be played out on mostly narrow, twisty back roads that feature four category-4 climbs, along with multiple short hills that aren't categorized. That will make it tough for the sprinters' teams to organize a full-scale chase. The finish in the medieval town of Joigny, population 10,000, is on the right bank of the Yonne River. A long-distance breakaway has a good chance of succeeding.
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Stage top 5
1. Fabian Cancellara (Swi), CSC, 236.5km in 6:36:15
2. Erik Zabel (G), Milram
3. Danilo Napolitano (I), Lampre
4. Tom Boonen (B), Quick Step-Innergetic
5. Robert Hunter (RSA), Barloworld, all s.t.
Overall
1. Fabian Cancellara (Swi), CSC, 15:12:08
2. Andreas Kloden (G), Astana, at 0:33
3. David Millar (GB), Saunier Duval-Prodir, at 0:41
4. George Hincapie (USA), Discovery, at 0:43
5. Bradley Wiggins (GB), Cofidis, at 0:43
Points
1. Tom Boonen (B), Quick Step-Innergetic, 80 points
2. Robbie McEwen (Aus), Predictor-Lotto, 74 pts
3. Erik Zabel (G), Milram, 62 pts
4. Romain Feillu (F), Agritubel, 57 pts
5. Fabian Cancellara (Swi), CSC, 54 pts.
KOM
1. Stéphane Auge (F), Cofidis, 8 points
2. David Millar (GB), Saunier Duval-Prodir, 5pts
3. Freddy Bichot (F), Agritubel, 3pts
To see how today's stage unfolded, simply CLICKHERE to open our Live Update Window
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