American Tyler Farrar won the third stage of the Tour De France this afternoon.
Stage three left Olonne Sur Mer on the Atlantic's Cote de Lumiere and made it's way on a sunny day with no wind to the left of Nantes through St Naziare to Redon, a town with a 60,000 population on the border of Brittany and the Loire.
The roads in this part of France are pan flat and this 198km stage was labelled as one for the sprinters such as Mark Cavendish, American Tyler Farrar who wanted a win on July 4th and yellow jersey wearing Thor Hushovd.
There was an early escape by Ruben Perez of Eustkatel, Jose Gutierrez of Movistar, Maxime Bouet of AG2R, Niki Terpstra of Quick Step and Mickael Delage of FDJ. With 78kms gone at Saint Colombian, they had a lead of seven and a half minutes.
Nicholas Roche punctured with 107kms to go but was soon paced back into the peleton.
The first sprint of the day came at Saint Hilaire de Chaleons with 93kms to go and it was Delage who took the twenty points with seventeen for Gutierrez and fifteen for Terpstra.
There were ten points left for the first man from the peleton and Mark Cavendish (pictured below), who was five seconds back on the yellow jersey, put in a sprint to make sure he got them to add to his five from the the first stage. However after the race he and Hushovd were disqualified with neither rider none the wiser as to why.
The five escapees were still over two and a half minutes as they went over the Cote du Pont de Saint Nazaire bridge which was designated as a fourth category climb. This saw Mikael Delage take the single point and prize money after sprinting to be the first over the centre of the bridge which was splitting up the peleton.
With 20kms to, Delarge, who was named the Brandt most agressive rider of the day and Gutierrez had left the other three and were thirty seconds clear of them and the peleton.
At speeds of 70kph, all escapees were finally dealt with and the race headed into Redon which was staging a finish of a Le Tour stage for the first time.
They got towards the finish which was next door to the local football ground with HTC in a line, chasing a Vacansoleil rider.
Into the last corner, Geraint Thomas went but up he was followed by a group containing the yellow jersey. Out of that group came Tyler Farrar and the American riding for Garmin snatched the victory ahead of Roman Filleu of Vacansoleil in a time of 4hr, 40 mins and 21 seconds. Mark Cavendish was fifth.
"This is Incredible, so happy to have won on July 4th," said Farrar afterwards, who thanked his team mates including David Millar for their work for helping him to win.
Thor Hushovd, who finished sixth, leads the yellow jersey from David Millar, Cadel Evans and Geraint Thomas.
Jose Rojas of Movistar who finished third took the green jersey, Phillipe Gilbert has the King Of The Mountains jersey and Geraint Thomas keeps his Young Riders jersey.
Stage 4 tomorrow is from Lorient to Mur de Bretagne and is 172.5km long.
Pictures copyright of Covsupport News Service. Credit CNS/KM