Columbia Cannot Be Beaten 1

The Progress Report
The third stage of the 2009 Tour de France, from Marseille to La Grande-Motte began at 1.01pm. There were 179 riders at the sign-on. The non-starter was Jurgen van de Walle (QSI) who crashed in stage two. The three intermediate sprints were in La Fare-les-Oliviers (48.5km), Mouriès (90.5km) and Arles (118.5km). The route was essentially flat although there were two small cat-four hills at Calissanne (56km) and Vayède (102km).

Immediate Attack By Four Riders…
As soon as the stage began, there was an attack. At the 1km mark Bouet (FDJ) and Dumoulin (COF) had jumped ahead of the bunch; they were chased down by De Kort (SKS) and Perez Moreno (EUS) but the peloton didn’t react at all. At 10km the four attackers joined forces. By then the peloton was already 8’15” behind. De Kort was stung by an insect at the 15km mark but his quartet continued to build its advantage: 9’35” at 19km; 10’20” at 20km; 13’00” at 37km. This was the maximum gain of the escape. The average speed for the first hour was 35.9km/h.

Bouet Becomes Virtual Leader
Bouet, the virtual leader of the Tour, won the first intermediate sprint of the stage. Then Saxo Bank started to up the tempo for the peloton. At 43km the bunch was 12’00” behind, at 48.5km – 11’00” behind. De Kort took three points at the Calissanne climb. The advantage dropped to 8’25” after a brief stint at the front by Saxo Bank riders but then it grew again. The average speed for the second hour was 33.7km/h. As the bunch arrived at the site of the second intermediate sprint, it was 10’10” behind. The average speed for the third hour was 36.6km/h.

Sprint Teams Take Charge Of Chase…
With 70km to go, Saxo Bank riders retreated from the front of the peloton and Columbia took over the chasing duties. The average speed for the fourth hour was 42.1km/h. With 130km to go, the deficit was 5’45”; 150km to go – 3’05”.

Columbia Cause Chaos In Finale
With 30km to go, all nine riders from the Columbia team – who were working to reel in the escapees – upped the tempo to such an extent that it caused a split in the peloton. With 27km to go, they caught the escapees and the front peloton consisted of 29 riders: Hushovd and Roulston (Cervelo), Armstrong, Popovych and Zubeldia (Astana), Cancellara (Saxo Bank), Perez Moreno (Euskaltel), Cavendish, Eisel, Grabsch, Hincapie, Kirchen, Martin, Montfort, Renshaw and Rogers (Columbia), Auge, Dumoulin and Kern (Cofidis), Pineau (Quickstep), Bouet (Agritubel), Gerdemann and Wegmann (Milram), Lemoine, Beppu, De Kort, Geschke, Hivert, Hupond (Skil-Shimano).
Silence and Saxo riders tried to reel in the move but failed. The only rider to drop out of the lead group was Eisel but the 28 then arrived at the finish together with a lead of 40 seconds.

Cavendish Claims Number Six
Although there were other good sprinters in the selection of 28 at the finish, no one was able to get around Cavendish who increases his lead in the points classification, after winning a fine sprint ahead of Hushovd. Cancellara finished sixth in the stage and will retain the yellow jersey with a lead of 33” over Martin (THR) and 40” over Armstrong (AST).