Cavendish wins, but thats not the story!

Cav had enough time to answer his phone when crossing the line.

Stage 3.

Sprint stage

Cavendish won.

Again.

No Surprise.

really don't need to say much more about that.

However..............

LANCE reminded us all of his cunning, his determination, his experience and his win at all costs attitude on the road to La Grande-Motte. Flat stage, early breakaway, Maxime Bouet of Agritubel, Samuel Dumoulin (Cofidis), Ruben Perez Moreno (Euskaltel-Euskadi) and Koen de Kort (Skil-Shimano), broke away and were allowed a fair amount of latitude before the peleton got working, at one stage 13 minutes ahead. blah blah blah.

The real story starts 32km from the finish though. With a cross wind buffeting the riders, eight Columbia-HTC riders forced a split in the peleton and pushed on to go clear of the chasing pack.
They were powering to get Renshaw and Cavendish to the line, but it just so happened that Lance Armstong was in the 28-man move. So Lances old mate George Hincapie was in the Columbia group and was the main instigator of the break - did Lance have prior knowledge? According to Lance "I've won the Tour de France seven times, why wouldn't you ride at the front? That makes no sense, why wouldn't you ride?".

So he was just in the right place right time eh?

Lance seemed pretty aware what was going on. His main GC rivals Carlos Sastre (Cervelo TestTeam), Cadel Evans (Silence-Lotto), Andy Schleck (Saxo Bank) and team mate Alberto Contador were not there, so what would Lance do? I know what the old Lance, the US postal/Discovery Channel Lance would have done - and thats what he did. With about 20km to go Lance raised his arm and sent team mates Yaroslav Popovych (surprised? an ex discovery Channel team mate that left Cadel and has returned to Lances side) and Haimar Zubeldia to the front to assist the break. So off they went and piled on the pressure, assisting Columbia in stretching the lead over the peleton (and their apparent team leader Alberto Contador). By the time cavendish had easily won another sprint, this time from Thor Hushovd, the lead group was 41 seconds ahead of the peleton.

The End result is that Lance finds himself in 3rd spot, leapfrogging a whole heap of challengers. With the Team TT to come in stage 4, which Astana is favourite, he may well be wearing yellow come tomorrow.

Lance Armstrong powering a break, his jersey could be a different coour at the end of the next stage.

Wow.

This is not going to be like any other tour in recent history.

God im excited, I think I just wet myself.

Stage 3 result.

1 Mark Cavendish (GBr) Team Columbia - HTC 5:01:24
2 Thor Hushovd (Nor) Cervelo Test Team
3 Cyril Lemoine (Fra) Skil-Shimano
4 Samuel Dumoulin (Fra) Cofidis, Le Credit en Ligne
5 Jérôme Pineau (Fra) Quick Step
6 Fabian Cancellara (Swi) Team Saxo Bank
7 Fabian Wegmann (Ger) Team Milram
8 Fumiyuki Beppu (Jpn) Skil-Shimano
9 Maxime Bouet (Fra) Agritubel
10 Linus Gerdemann (Ger) Team Milram
11 Yaroslav Popovych (Ukr) Astana
12 Thierry Huppond (Fra) Skil-Shimano
13 Ruben Perez Moreno (Spa) Euskaltel - Euskadi
14 Stéphane Auge (Fra) Cofidis, Le Credit en Ligne
15 Tony Martin (Ger) Team Columbia - HTC
16 Mark Renshaw (Aus) Team Columbia - HTC
17 George Hincapie (USA) Team Columbia - HTC
18 Kim Kirchen (Lux) Team Columbia - HTC
19 Lance Armstrong (USA) Astana
20 Koen de Kort (Ned) Skil-Shimano
21 Maxime Monfort (Bel) Team Columbia - HTC
22 Christophe Kern (Fra) Cofidis, Le Credit en Ligne
23 Simon Geschke (Ger) Skil-Shimano
24 Haimar Zubeldia Aguirre (Spa) Astana
25 Michael Rogers (Aus) Team Columbia - HTC

the rest - 41 seconds behind.

General Classification.

1 Fabian Cancellara (Swi) Team Saxo Bank 9:50:58
2 Tony Martin (Ger) Team Columbia - HTC 0:00:33
3 Lance Armstrong (USA) Astana 0:00:40
4 Alberto Contador Velasco (Spa) Astana 0:00:59
5 Bradley Wiggins (GBr) Garmin - Slipstream 0:01:00
6 Andreas Klöden (Ger) Astana 0:01:03
7 Linus Gerdemann (Ger) Team Milram
8 Cadel Evans (Aus) Silence - Lotto 0:01:04
9 Maxime Monfort (Bel) Team Columbia - HTC 0:01:10
10 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Astana 0:01:11
11 Michael Rogers (Aus) Team Columbia - HTC 0:01:13
12 Roman Kreuziger (Cze) Liquigas
13 George Hincapie (USA) Team Columbia - HTC 0:01:17
14 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Liquigas 0:01:18
15 Gustav Erik Larsson (Swe) Team Saxo Bank 0:01:22

Points Classification
1 Mark Cavendish (GBr) Team Columbia - HTC 70 pts
2 Thor Hushovd (Nor) Cervelo Test Team 54
3 Samuel Dumoulin (Fra) Cofidis, Le Credit en Ligne 36
4 Fabian Cancellara (Swi) Team Saxo Bank 35
5 Maxime Bouet (Fra) Agritubel 31

KOM
No Change