Day Three started with only 179 riders after Quick Step's Jurgen Van De Walle crashed yesterday and a later hospital diagnosis revealed a punctured lung and a fracture collarbone.
In windy conditions on the 196.5km stage from Marseille to La Grand Motte, Maxime Bouet (Agritubel), Samuel Dumoulin (Cofidis), Ruben Perez Moreno (Euskaltel-Euskadi) and Koen de Kort (Skil-Shimano) went clear. They were over seven minutes ahead before the peleton started working to pull them back.
There were a number of crashes with Australian Stuart O'Grady, one of those who went down but got up and carried on.
Stuart O'Grady
Team Colombia HTC whose boss Bob Stapleton had promised his team would try and do something every day, and they chased the leaders down. All the Colombia squad were in a 27 rider break which caught the four long time escapees and then got away from the peleton.
The break also included Race leader Fabien Cancellera and Astanta's Lance Armstrong, Popovych and Zubeldia, who all worked in a bid to get up the General Classification ahead of tomorrow's Team Time Trial.
With five kilometres to go, Colombia were doing all the work, something which left George Hincapie unhappy but it paid off as Mark Renshaw let Mark Cavendish up to the line and the Green Jersey wearer beat Thor Hushovd to win the third stage.
As he crossed the line, Cavendish put his hand to his ear to indicate a phone call and explained to Team Colombia's Press Officer: "This gesture was dedicated to HTC because they [introduced] a new phone last week and I said if I win I'd do that for them. "There are eight sprint stages we have targeted here, so hopefully I'll get a few more before the end of the Tour, and one of them will be a win on the Champs Elysées."
"It was brilliant. We were the only sprint team that wanted to ride today in the front group, but it worked out and the other teams had to ride behind anyway to chase us. You could really appreciate how strong we were as a squad and we took a lot of time out of the guys behind. It was a hard last kilometre, but I had five guys around me in the last build-up for the sprint. Mark [Renshaw] kept his cool and left it very late because there was a headwind but it worked out well."
"It doesn't matter who you are, if you work hard you're going to succeed, and if you've got a team like Columbia-HTC that are able to ride for you and they are such a great mix of the best young talented riders in the world and the best older experienced riders in the world, then it's a real winning formula. When we all work together it's bound to work out."
Lance Armstrong who finished 19th gave Cavendish a hug after the race, whilst sixth placed Fabien Cancellera keeps his yellow jersey.
Mark Cavendish
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