Hello and welcome back to Corsica for the third and deciding stage of the Criterium International. The first stage, a flat ride around Porto Vecchio, was won by Ion Izagirre, who was just meant to lead out Lobato, but kept going and going to take a magnificent stage win for the boys in orange. On the second stage, a short 8km time trial also around Porto Vecchio, Ion Izagirre could keep his yellow jersey by one second over stage winner Bradley Wiggins. Now the riders face an EPIC batlle up to the top of the Col de l'Ospedale, where the final GC will be decided. Favourites are Frenchman Thomas Hinault of Ag2r, reigning champion of the Tour de France, Bradley Wiggins of Sky, and Dutchman Bauke Mollema of Belkin.



It took a while, but a breakaway seems to have been established. Bazzana (UHC), Goos (BEL), L.S. Haedo (CAN), Barta (TNE) and Malacarne (BSE) have a gap of 1'30" to the Peleton. All these riders are within a minute of race leader Izagirre, Barta being best placed in 17th, 24" behind the Euskaltel rider.



Jan Barta has fallen, and is now back in the Peleton. He seems all right though, and soldiers on. The gap is now 1'33".



It's close at the Intermediate Sprint, but Bazzana takes it ahead of Malacarne and Haedo. The four escapees now hold a gap of 3'26" over the main field.



Goos takes the Mountain sprint ahead of Malacarne and Bazzana. He is now tied with classification leader Avery, with still another three Mountain Sprints to go. The gap has now grown to 4'43".



The Euskaltel team of race leader Izagirre are really picking up the chase now, though one has to wonder if that's the cleverest thing they could do. Izagirre isn't renowned for being fantastic in the mountains, so one could have expected Euskaltel to try and save as much energy as possible, so that Izagirre has maximum support on the final climb. The escapees seem to have reached their maximum advantage, at about 6'12".



This time it's Malacarne who takes maximum points at the Mountain Sprint, ahead of Bazzana and Haedo. Now Malacarne is the virtual leader of the KoM rankings, with 10 points. Goos and Bazzana are tied for second, both with 6 points. The gap now is 5'24".



The first riders have been dropped on the climb to the top of the Viggianello. Mainly CCC and Novo Nordisk riders have been dropped, but German Giro and Vuelta stage winner Robert Förster and Irish track world champion Martyn Irvine, both of United Healthcare, are also in the Gruppetto.



Euskaltel-Euskadi are really working their asses off for yellow jersey Ion Izagirre. The gap has come down to 4'37".



Allan (SOJ) and Pre-Race favourite Hinault (ALM) attack from very far out. Tschopp (IAM) and Nokvasson (EUC) are trying to follow.



Bardet (ALM), Rolland (EUC) and S. Clarke (OGE) are now also on the attack. That would mean Europcar and Ag2r would have two men inthis move. Meanwhile up front, Goos won the Mountain Sprint at the top of Col de Mela ahead of Bazzana and Haedo.



At the foot of the Col de Bacinu, this is the situation:

It's also interesting to note that Hinault seems to be working for Bardet and not the other way around.



Euskaltel are commiting everybody except for Izagirre and de las Campos to the chase, and the gap is already coming down a little.



The two groups have merged in to one big, eleven man strong group at the front. The gap is now 2'38".



De las Campos putting in a massive turn at the front of the Peleton, reducing the Peleton to 76 riders and taking twenty seconds off the escapees in only two kilometres, the gap is now 2'24".



Rolland takes the KoM sprint ahead of Hinault and Bardet.



The Peleton is falling to pieces now, with Basso, white jersey Birtles, Dombrowski, Boswell and Gadret all falling casualty to De las Campos



At the bottom of the descent, the front group has also fallen apart, with Rolland, Hinault, Bardet, Nokvasson and Clarke ahead of the others. This is the current situation:

Hinault takes the Intermediate Sprint ahead of Bardet and Rolland. The situation is:

At the foot of the Col de l'Ospedale Hinault attacks his breakaway companions. Situation is:

Pinot (FDJ) attacks from the Peleton. Meanwhile, Bardet and Nokvasson have been caught by the Tschopp group.



Both Pinot (had attacked) and Basso (had been dropped) are back in the Peleton. You can see the Tschopp group just 25" ahead of them.



Hinault now has a full 1'02" on Pinot and Clarke, who have 1'52" on the Tschopp group, who have 23" on the Peleton. It looks very much like it's between Hinault, Pinot and Clarke now.



The Tschopp group has been caught, again courtesy of De las Campos.



Rolland has now dropped Clarke. Meanwhile, Mollema tried to attack, but failed.



This time Mollema manages to jump clear.



Hinault looks safe, but De las Campos and Wiggins have been making great time, and Mollema, Clarke and Rolland might all be caught.



Mollema and Clarke have been caught, Hinault hols 1'50" over Rolland and 2'20" over the Peleton.



Rolland is still just about there, whilst Mollema tries it again.



Hinault has it! Now it's about how much time he can take. At the start of the Stage he was 1'04" behind Izagirre.



Now Wiggins goes. He could be a danger for both Hinault and Izagirre!



Wiggins takes second, De la Montagne third. Hinault and Wiggins overtake Izagirre in the GC, but third is an excellent result for the young all-rounder. Bradley Wiggins also takes the points classification ahead of Mollema and Hinault, whereas we have a three-way tie for the King of the Mountains, with Bazzana, Malacarne and Hinault all finishing on ten points. In the end, the Commisionairs decided to award it in that order. The team award goes to the team of GC winner Thomas Hinault, Ag2r - Hinault also takes the white jersey with him.

Rank	Name	Team	Time
1	Thomas Hinault	AG2R La Mondiale	4h56'13
2	Bradley Wiggins	Sky Procycling	+ 1'54
3	Pierre De la Montagne	Cofidis, Solutions Crédits	+ 2'07
4	Bauke Mollema	Belkin Pro Cycling	s.t.
5	José Herrada	Movistar Team	+ 2'20
6	Ivan Basso	Cannondale Pro Cycling	s.t.
7	Cristiano De las Campos	Euskaltel - Euskadi	s.t.
8	Mathieu Favre	Orica - GreenEdge	s.t.
9	Jérôme Coppel	Cofidis, Solutions Crédits	s.t.
10	Wilco Kelderman	Belkin Pro Cycling	s.t.

Rank	Name	Team	Time
1	Thomas Hinault	AG2R La Mondiale	6h44'33
2	Bradley Wiggins	Sky Procycling	+ 1'05
3	Ion Izagirre	Euskaltel - Euskadi	+ 1'42
4	Bauke Mollema	Belkin Pro Cycling	+ 1'45
5	Jonathan Castroviejo	Movistar Team	+ 1'46
6	Pierre De la Montagne	Cofidis, Solutions Crédits	+ 1'56
7	Thomas Löfkvist	IAM Cycling	+ 1'58
8	Wilco Kelderman	Belkin Pro Cycling	+ 2'00
9	Jérôme Coppel	Cofidis, Solutions Crédits	+ 2'02
10	Thibaut Pinot	FDJ	+ 2'05

Rank	Name	Team	Points	General
1	Bradley Wiggins	Sky Procycling	20	45
2	Bauke Mollema	Belkin Pro Cycling	14	31
3	Thomas Hinault	AG2R La Mondiale	31	31
4	Jonathan Castroviejo	Movistar Team	0	29
5	Ion Izagirre	Euskaltel - Euskadi	0	27
6	Bryan Coquard	Team Europcar	0	20
7	Brett Lancaster	Orica - GreenEdge	0	16
8	Pierre De la Montagne	Cofidis, Solutions Crédits	16	16
9	Manuel Belletti	AG2R La Mondiale	0	16
10	Jordan Birtles	Cofidis, Solutions Crédits	0	14

Rank	Name	Team	Mountain	General
1	Alessandro Bazzana	UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling Team	10	10
2	Gaël Malacarne	Bretagne - Séché Environnement	10	10
3	Thomas Hinault	AG2R La Mondiale	10	10
4	Marc Goos	Belkin Pro Cycling	8	8
5	Lucas Sebastián Haedo	Cannondale Pro Cycling	8	8
6	Pierre Rolland	Team Europcar	6	6
7	Clinton Avery	Champion System Pro Cycling Team	0	6
8	Bradley Wiggins	Sky Procycling	4	4
9	Jonathon McEvoy	Team NetApp - Endura	0	4
10	Pierre De la Montagne	Cofidis, Solutions Crédits	2	2

Rank	Name	Team	Time	General Time
1	Thomas Hinault	AG2R La Mondiale	+ 4h56'13	6h44'33 (1)
2	Pierre De la Montagne	Cofidis, Solutions Crédits	+ 4h58'20	+ 1'56 (3)
3	Cristiano De las Campos	Euskaltel - Euskadi	+ 4h58'33	+ 2'20 (10)
4	Mathieu Favre	Orica - GreenEdge	s.t.	+ 2'08 (7)
5	Wilco Kelderman	Belkin Pro Cycling	s.t.	+ 2'00 (4)
6	Travis Jones	Sojasun	s.t.	+ 2'40 (11)
7	Thibaut Pinot	FDJ	s.t.	+ 2'05 (5)
8	Ion Izagirre	Euskaltel - Euskadi	s.t.	+ 1'42 (2)
9	Romain Bardet	AG2R La Mondiale	s.t.	+ 2'17 (8)
10	Alexandre Geniez	FDJ	s.t.	+ 2'08 (6)

Rank	Team	Time	General Time
1	AG2R La Mondiale	14h53'19	20h18'19 (1)
2	FDJ	+ 2'20	+ 1'32 (2)
3	Cofidis, Solutions Crédits	+ 3'21	+ 2'31 (3)
4	IAM Cycling	+ 3'34	+ 2'50 (4)
5	Belkin Pro Cycling	+ 3'51	+ 2'55 (5)
6	Euskaltel - Euskadi	+ 8'40	+ 8'18 (8)
7	Orica - GreenEdge	s.t.	+ 7'34 (6)
8	Movistar Team	+ 9'24	+ 8'09 (7)
9	Team Europcar	+ 11'56	+ 11'33 (9)
10	Cannondale Pro Cycling	+ 13'11	+ 12'27 (10)