Stage 3 looks extremley boring, right up until the sprint. It's an uphill sprint so anything can happen, apart from a Credit Agricole win, that would be absurd. The favourites given by the bookies today are Ciolek, Napolitano and Haedo, however given the uphill sprint I think that Ventoso has a good chance to suprise along with Florencio and Bozic. Out of the 3 given by the bookies, Napolitano is the best up the hills on paper.
As I said before I would expect this to be a very boring stage...and it was. Here is the usual break:
Piil (Carlsberg), Guedson (Saturn), Cortinovis (Fed-Ex), Scanlon (Carrefour), Rossi (Switzerland) and Bodrogi (Credit Agricole) all go clear with some stupid riders hovering between them and the bunch. The stupid riders are Barth (Accumalux) and Kroon (Telefonica) and hovering between them and the bunch we have Weigold (Germany) and Voeckler (AG2R). Just for reference sake, these guys stay hovering up until they are caught by the bunch and dropped, "smart move".
Piil won the first sprint ahead of Rossi and Scanlon. Then Rossi won the second ahead of Guedson and Piil. The final sprint was won by Scanlon ahead of Piil and Rossi.
A random picture of the break, some trees and the Mavic car:
Anyway, the break gets swallowed with around 11kms to the finish and the bunch sprint is on.
Napolitano has chosen the perfect lead-out man, his team-mate Kessler. Kessler is great up the hills so should give him a great boost. Unfortunatley for the FloGas manager Magenta's Ciolek is behind Napolitano and will benefit from the lead-out. Clerc is behind Ciolek and Haedo is behind him. No-one else will be able to win today other than those mentioned. Eisel and Ventoso are way back.
With 1km to go things look like this:
It's a two-horse race, Clerc is fading. Kessler gave a great lead-out but Napolitano is into the wind and Ciolek is about to come out of his wheel. Can Ciolek go around him or will Napolitano hang on?
Timed to perfection. Ciolek wins today, the lead-out from Kessler and Napolitano made it easy for him. The GC stays the same other than a couple of minor changes outside of the top 15. Ciolek takes the sprinter's jersey and since there were no mountains today, Halgand keeps his KOM jersey.
Stage Results
| 1 | Gerald Ciolek | MAGENTA TREFOIL | 4h41'00 |
| 2 | Danilo Napolitano | TEAM FLOGAS | s.t. |
| 3 | Aurélien Clerc | CYCLING24 - HONDA | s.t. |
| 4 | Juan José Haedo | FERRARI - GUERCIOTTI | s.t. |
| 5 | Sebastian Siedler | FED-EX | s.t. |
| 6 | Igor Astarloa | FED-EX | s.t. |
| 7 | Borut Bozic | AG2R PRÉVOYANCE - RENAULT | s.t. |
| 8 | Bernhard Eisel | CARLSBERG | s.t. |
| 9 | Matteo Carrara | FERRARI - GUERCIOTTI | s.t. |
| 10 | Juan Pablo Forero | TELEFONICA | s.t. |
| 11 | Francisco Ventoso | ACCUMALUX | s.t. |
| 12 | Xavier Florencio | CYCLING24 - HONDA | s.t. |
| 13 | Luciano Pagliarini | CYCLING24 - HONDA | s.t. |
| 14 | Matthias Kessler | TEAM FLOGAS | s.t. |
| 15 | Felix Odebrecht | DEUTSCHLAND | s.t. |
| 16 | Tom Veelers | LA GAZETTA DELLO SPORT | s.t. |
| 17 | Robert Wagner | DEUTSCHLAND | s.t. |
| 18 | André Schulze | DEUTSCHLAND | s.t. |
| 19 | Stéphane Bonsergent | AG2R PRÉVOYANCE - RENAULT | s.t. |
| 20 | Stefan Schumacher | CARLSBERG | s.t. |
| 21 | Manuel Antonio | TELEFONICA | s.t. |
| 22 | Marc De Maar | CARLSBERG | s.t. |
| 23 | Fabio Sabatini | CYCLING24 - HONDA | s.t. |
| 24 | Eric Baumann | CARLSBERG | s.t. |
| 25 | Aleksandr Khatuntsev | TELEFONICA | s.t. |
| 26 | Martin Pedersen | FERRARI - GUERCIOTTI | s.t. |
| 27 | Geraint Thomas | ACCUMALUX | s.t. |
| 28 | René Mandri | AG2R PRÉVOYANCE - RENAULT | s.t. |
| 29 | Dmitri Kozontchuk | FERRARI - GUERCIOTTI | s.t. |
| 30 | Samuel Sánchez Gonzalez | DISCOVERY CHANNEL PRO CYCLING TEAM | s.t. |
Points
| 1 | Gerald Ciolek | MAGENTA TREFOIL | 25 | 41 |
| 2 | Juan José Haedo | FERRARI - GUERCIOTTI | 13 | 33 |
| 3 | Bernhard Eisel | CARLSBERG | 8 | 33 |
| 4 | Danilo Napolitano | TEAM FLOGAS | 20 | 30 |
| 5 | Markus Fothen | MAGENTA TREFOIL | 0 | 25 |
