Stage 3: Anvers > Huy, 159.5km
As we've come to expect from this Tour route and its first week, it was another day of manic action and accidents in which time was won and lost on the iconic Mur de Huy, while further down the road a massive crash - so big that they stopped the race - resulted in two of the top three on GC, including the Yellow jersey of Fabian Cancellara, abandoning the Tour.
The stage was won by Joaquim Rodriguez, winner on this very climb at the 2012 Flèche Wallone, while it was Chris Froome, the only man able to come close to matching the surge of speed by Rodriguez and a man supposed to be spending this first week limiting his loses, who moved into the race lead.
Froome took the second place time bonus and finished far enough ahead of Tony Martin to take the Maillot Jaune by a single second. You might think it too early for Froome to want Yellow, especially with the cobbles coming tomorrow but it puts the Sky team car in first place behind the race on tomorrow's crucial stage when mechanical luck can play a huge factor.
Froome put 18 seconds into Contador on this short-sharp climb to move 36 seconds ahead of the Spaniard and now has a buffer of 1'38" on Nibali and 1'56" on Quintana. Mechanicals or unlucky accidents aside, tomorrow should suit Nibali but he'll need a huge day just to get back on terms with Froome and, as we've seen so far in the stages we thought Froome might find tough, there's no reason to assume he will be bad on cobbles, especially if it stays dry. Quintana on the other hand can scarcely afford to lose anymore time in what's turning into a tough first week for the Colombian.
Still, for all the couple of minutes of drama the Mur served up and the twist it added to the daily unraveling of the GC contenders -- something it was designed to do when the organisors put it in, and did well -- it was those huge crashes further down the road that stole the headlines.
They came back-to-back about 60km from the finish and used up every single member of the Tours medical staff, forcing race officials to stop those still standing in their tracks while clean up and treatment went on. There was a lot of confusion to begin with but in the end it was the right call to make and a brave one at that, but can you imagine the race continuing up the road to another accident and no medical personnel on hand?
The accident brought about the end of the Tour for Simon Gerrans (who must have been thinking of the stage win today), Tom Dumoulin (who must have been dreaming of snatching Yellow at the finish), along with Dmitrii Kozonchuk and William Bonnet on the road and, later in the day, Cancellara who was forced out with two broken vertebrae - a testament to character and toughness of cyclists that he rode those final 60km to the finish with that injury.
Watching Cancellara suffer his way to the finish and up that final climb in Huy not only reminded us how tough he is to ride those final 60km with that horrific injury but merely highlighted how quickly fortunes can change in cycling. One day he was making all the right moves and sprinting into Yellow; the next he was broken and out of the Tour without being able to properly defend his jersey.
But before we leave it behind and look towards more certain carnage tomorrow, spare a thought for Tony Martin, the most unlucky man not to have crashed. After missing out on Yellow by 3 seconds yesterday when Cancellara stole in to take the third place bonus seconds ahead of his team mate Mark Cavendish, he finished today 40 seconds behind Froome, but thanks once more to the spectre of bonus seconds Martin missed out on Yellow again, this time by a single second. Tomorrow will present him with another chance to gain his career first Yellow jersey and the cobbles could well suit a man with his power, but the likes of Van Avermaet (at 28 seconds) and Sagan (at 31 seconds) will have ideas of their own, if indeed the later is allowed off the chaperoning of Contador leash!
| Result: | Classement: |
| 1. Rodriguez (KAT) in 3h26'54" 2. Froome (SKY) +s.t. 3. Vuillermoz (ALM) +4" 4. D. Martin (TCG) +5" 5. Gallopin (LTS) +8" 6. Van Garderen (BMC) +11" --- 7. Nibali (AST) +11" 9. Quintana (MOV) +s.t. 12. Contador (TCS) +18" 52. Pinot (FDJ) +1'33" | 1. Froome (SKY) in 7h11'37" 2. T. Martin (OQS) +1" 3. Van Garderen (BMC) +13" 4. Gallopin (LTS) +26" 5. Van Avermaet (BMC) +28" 6. Sagan (TCS) +31" --- 8. Contador (TCS) +36" 13. Nibali (AST) +1'38" 17. Quintana (MOV) +1'56" 27. Pinot (FDJ) +2'58" |
