Orica Greenedge's Simon Gerrans won the third stage of the 100th Tour De France as the Tour ended its time in Corsica.
After bidding au revoir to Ajaccio, where yesterday's second stage finished with a win for Radio Shack's Jan Bakelandts which put him in the yellow jersey, a second ahead of Brit David Millar, the riders set off on a bumpy 145.5k ride along the west coast to Calvi.
Vacansoleil's Lieuwe Westra was the first to attack and he went away, only to be caught by AG2R's Sebastian Minard, Sojasun's Alex Vuillermoz, Cyril Gautier of Europcar and Simon Clarke of Orica GreenEdge and they built a lead of 2.20 within the first five kilometres in temperatures of 23 degrees.
Just after, came the first abandonment of the race when Astanta's Andrey Kashchkin was forced to withdraw due and the first climb of the day was the Category Four col de San Bastiano which saw Simon Clarke took the single point on offer.
With a gap of 4.25, the five out in front approached the first sprint at Sagone and Sébastien Minard took the twenty points on offer. When the peloton caught up, some 3.50 later, stage one winner Marcel Kittel beat Andre Greipel and Mark Cavendish (eight points) to the ten points, moving him eight points clear of Cannondale's Peter Sagan, in the battle for the Green Jersey.
The five were still clear as they started on the second climb of the day - the Category 3 col de San Martino, a 7.5km climb with average gradients of 5.4%. Cyril Gautier attacked but it was again Simon Clark who took the two points beating Alexis Vuillermoz to the line.
Then at the 75km to go mark, Clarke took the la côte de Porto climb. Their break conitnued until twenty kilometres to go when Minard and Clark pushed off the front and took a fifteen second lead over the other three who were thirty five seconds ahead of the peloton.
Clarke was soon caught and King Of The Mountains leader Pierre Rolland went away with 14kms remaining to take the full points on the col de Marsolino, which was the final categorised climb of the day.
Omega Pharma's Sylvain Chavanel tried to chase Rolland down and caught him with 8.4kms remaining and the attacks continued with no sprinters near the front. Up the front, however was Peter Sagan and Simon Gerrans who set after Argos Shimano's Tom Dumolin who was first under the flam rouge.
With Dumolin dispatched, Orica Green Edge's Simon Gerrans lead into the final stretch and he was taken up to the line to win by a wheel ahead of Peter Sagan, Rojas of Movistar, Kwiatkowski, Gilbert, Flecha, Gavazzi, Bouet, Simon and Izaguirre in a time of 3.41.24.
Hero of the day was undoubtedly, Geraint Thomas of Team Sky (pictured below) who had been diagnosed with a small fracture in his pelvis but chose to continue and finished 177th, nine minutes down on Gerran's time.
As the riders dashed to get their planes and ferries to Nice for tomorrow's team time trial, it was Jan Bakelandt's who will wear yellow again for the fourth stage.
With his second place, Peter Sagan has gone back into the Green Jersey with 74 points, some seventeen clear of Marcel Kittel.
Race pictures: http://www.teamsky.com/gallery/0,27401,29112_8800755,00.html
Picture copyright of Covsupport News Service