A very rolling route with some of the biggest climbs.
Auber 93 did what we do best, and went on a solo move on the downhill section of the first 10km. By the bottom, Malacarne had a easy 2minute lead, and by the top of the first climb, he had 3minutes.
By the second climb, his lead had shot out to over 6 minutes, and it looked like he was going to take all the maximum climbers points on offer.
By the time he reached the final climb,the usual suicide attacks started, and by the top, his lead was down to 1 minute 30 over Longo Borghini, and 3minutes to the pack.
He was soon overtaken, and dropped by most.
With 20km left to go, we started thinking about the finale. With Levarlet having an ok sprinting stat, he'd be able to follow Drujon's wheel to a good position. Hopefully this would make him move up the GC a fair bit.
With 3km to go, Drujon was sat behind Duque's wheel.
And he sprinted out to take another good 4th place.
Results:
1 Mikhaylo Khalilov CERAMICA FLAMINIA 4h06'41
2 Cândido Barbosa LIBERTY SEGUROS s.t.
3 Joaquín Sobrino RELAX - GAM s.t. 4 Mathieu Drujon AUBER 93 s.t.
5 Pedro Cardoso LA - MSS - MILANEZA s.t.
6 David Herrero KARPIN GALICIA s.t. 7 Guillaume Levarlet AUBER 93 s.t.
8 Leonardo Duque COFIDIS, LE CRÉDIT PAR TÉLÉPHONE s.t.
9 Ángel Vicioso RELAX - GAM s.t.
10 Jan Hruska RELAX - GAM s.t. 36 Maxim Belkov AUBER 93 s.t.
GC:
1 Cândido Barbosa LIBERTY SEGUROS 17h58'53
2 Ángel Vicioso RELAX - GAM + 4
3 Tiago Machado RIBERALVES - BOAVISTA + 36
4 Aarón Villegas ORBEA - OREKA S.D.A. + 1'45
5 Leonardo Duque COFIDIS, LE CRÉDIT PAR TÉLÉPHONE + 1'55
6 David Herrero KARPIN GALICIA + 2'07
7 Pedro Cardoso LA - MSS - MILANEZA + 2'15
8 Danail Petrov SPORT LISBOA E BENFICA s.t.
9 Santos González KARPIN GALICIA s.t.
10 David García Dapena KARPIN GALICIA s.t. 11 Guillaume Levarlet AUBER 93 s.t.
18 Maxim Belkov AUBER 93 s.t.
69 Jean Mespoulède AUBER 93 + 13'11
72 Mathieu Drujon AUBER 93 + 14'18
94 Maxime Méderel AUBER 93 + 19'45
97 Jérémie Galland AUBER 93 + 20'46
125 Davide Malacarne AUBER 93 + 46'15
129 Christophe Diguet AUBER 93 + 53'37
135 Ricardo Horta BARBOT - HALCÓN + 1h20'49
Mountains Jersey: 1 Davide Malacarne AUBER 93 70
2 David Moncoutié COFIDIS, LE CRÉDIT PAR TÉLÉPHONE 35
3 Joaquim Andrade FERCASE - ROTA DOS MÓVEIS 24
4 Raffaele Illiano CERAMICA FLAMINIA 22
5 Giampaolo Cheula BARLOWORLD 20
Gaudin was asked to participate in this race, so he'll be riding in place of Malacarne as our breakaway specialist.
The stage is pretty flat, with just the small bump before the finish.
Gaudin got in the breakaway as expected, and was joined by French hero Voeckler. Would they be able to go all the way we wondered?
The answer was, unfortunately, no. Mainly due to being under-equiped with food for the stage, so they all ran out of energy just as the pack caught them. Shortly after, in the team car, we were getting reports over the radio from the riders saying they felt like they were on a saturday morning cafe run. Well, we were amazed to hear them so happy after racing and getting a beating recently. But we would keep our amazement under wraps until we could see what the riders could do.
Well, Morizot decided he'd have a go alone, and on the final little climb, shot off the front to a quick 20 second lead, which he kept over the top and for another 2km afterwards. Of course the sprinters weren't going to let him get away so easily.
Drujon was also feeling amazing, having been protected all race long by Diguet and Jollet he was right up there at the front, sat on Feillu's wheel.
With 2km to go, the sprint really opened up, and Drujon could see everyone around him starting to fade. So just coming upto 1km to go, he started to make his move past Feillu.
And he just kept going, eating the ground up between himself and 1st place, until over the line he rolled. No time to put his hands up, but enough time to shout out in delight!
A ever so slightly mountainous stage which will see us lose the leaders jersey i have no doubt. We are still looking for a top 10 overall position though, and can believe that Levarlet is now ready to get that.
With the break just caught at the bottom of the climb, the pace set was fierce, so rather than slaughtering our worse riders by making them try and stay with the pack, Drujon went at his own pace with a few riders protecting him.
Moncoutie was the only rider able to get a gap, with Sevilla trying many times, unsuccessfully.
Levarlet was doing well, and was in the top 5 in the final kilometre, but his legs filled up with the dreaded lactic acid, and he dropped out of the top few who managed to create an imaginary gap which the organisers agreed on.
Another mountain stage with Levarlet tipped as the smallest favourite.
With there being a intermediate sprint fairly early on, and no mountains beforehand, Drujon went with the break, that was caught, and another went. So he single-handedly brought it back and then still sprinted and won the sprint. Had there been another 10metres to go, he wouldn't have got it.
Then the mountains kicked in and a proper break went off and split up over all the climbs. By the final one only two riders had managed to get a clear gap from the peloton, and Drujon was now right off the back, kept company by Gaudin, Jollet and Diguet.
The two leaders on the road kept their one minute advantage, and leading into the final kilometre, Dupont led out and kept his head to win stage 3.
Results:
1 Hubert Dupont AG2R PRÉVOYANCE 5h33'20
2 David Moncoutié COFIDIS, LE CRÉDIT PAR TÉLÉPHONE s.t.
3 Cristian Gasperoni CERAMICA FLAMINIA + 40
4 Raffaele Illiano CERAMICA FLAMINIA s.t.
5 Przemyslaw Niemiec MICHE s.t.
6 Markus Eibegger ELK HAUS - SIMPLON s.t.
7 Thomas Rohregger ELK HAUS - SIMPLON s.t.
8 Christian Pfannberger ELK HAUS - SIMPLON s.t.
9 Óscar Sevilla RELAX - GAM s.t.
10 Francis Mourey FRANÇAISE DES JEUX s.t. 12 Guillaume Levarlet AUBER 93 s.t.
17 Maxim Belkov AUBER 93 s.t.
43 Jean Mespoulède AUBER 93 + 11'03
45 Florian Morizot AUBER 93 s.t.
112 Christophe Diguet AUBER 93 + 37'48
113 Thierry Jollet AUBER 93 s.t.
115 Damien Gaudin AUBER 93 + 39'40 116 Mathieu Drujon AUBER 93 + 39'48
The final stage should finish in a sprint finish, and with Auber 93's cheeky tactics, should see Levarlet get higher up in the GC.
With 3km to go, Drujon has finally found a wheel, but is pretty tired. Levarlet is following.
And by the end, Drujon faded, obviously the two days of climbing took it out of him, and levarlet came in the best of the riders on his same time, so he moved upto the last scoring place for points, 12th.
CrueTrue wrote:
More text would make the story even better.
Aye, i agree, but when you end up playing a stage like the last one, and all you do is come 20-something, and all you've gained is 200 euros and a bit of publicity, which doesn't matter (i think length of breakaway should be included in PCM08 to increase sponsors happiness - that would be realism), the last thing you feel like is writing a page on how unibet dominated a race...
I'll write more for you in future CrueTrue B)
Deadpool wrote:
Actually, he wins rarely at all, but the fact that he wins as much as he does with the team and difficulty level he is on is amazing
I've won 6 times this year, 11 2nd places, and 8 3rd places. Or roughly that...
Edited by rjc_43 on 05-04-2008 11:04
Another small scale french race. The usual suspects were in here, with Agritubel being the team to beat for us as they occupy 2nd place in the continental rankings being 400 points behind first placed Wiesenhof Felt. Barloworld is still racing the Tour de France currently, so luckily aren't scoring many points, but they aren't racing the Vuelta, therefore putting even more pressure on us to perform right now, otherwise we won't stand a chance.
Our best riders will be riding today, but even so, it will be a struggle to get a result. With a hill in the race that potentially will shred the field down into groups and that has percentages classed as "mountainous", only Levarlet and Belkov are actually any use on the circuit.
With this in mind, Gaudin follows an attack, which they promptly stopped upon reaching a downhill section. Gaudin didn't stop, preferring to carry on alone.
After quickly building up a lead of 1 minute 30 over the peloton, a number of other teams decide to have a go as well, a group of 6 and a group of 4 form behind.
As can be seen, the group of 6 quickly reel back Gaudin into their fold and set about making a good lead.
Sportingly, Gaudin saw that the lead wasn't going to build much without the help of Nippo and Credit Agricole, and as those two teams had riders in the 2nd group on the road they weren't relaying in. So he sat up as well to allow the riders to come across. A strong group of 11 is now 3minutes up on the peloton. With Gaudin being the strongest rider in the breakaway, we would have to be careful as to how much work he was doing. We didn't want to be messed around by the other teams as they usually try to do.
Slowly the break was brought back as the lack of strength up front really kept the pace slow. Well Gaudin wasn't going to give up without a fight, and shot off the front of the group to keep away from the peloton for a bit more publicity.
Well, not long after, with Gaudin still out front by his 45 seconds, Salmon wasn't having any of it and attacked to catch up. This spurred a reaction from a lot of the bigger teams, and so with AG2r sitting up from their chasing, it was time for Belkov to go as well.
A group of 4 formed up front, with Belkov and Gaudin chasing with the pack close behind.
It wasn't to be for Gaudin and Belkov however as the pack, led by Credit Agricole caught them up. Gaudin had had a good race and would probably just sit up now.
Levarlet was our last chance to go for a good position, and so on the steepest part he put in a blistering attack. He's one hard man, thats for sure! No one could follow his pace, at least for the time being.
Levarlet keeps the gap up over the climb, but on the descent it keeps coming down. As Gautier leads out the four up front, Levarlet hopes he can keep going.
And with the 3km to go road sign Levarlet grits his teeth and chews through his bar tape to hang on out there. Gautier takes a well deserved win over his compatriots.
And with a final sprint, Levarlet manages to hang on! Credit where its due, he pulled out a performance today!
i think thats the best comment thats been written on here 
