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July 04, 2005
Boonen again! Takes Stage 3 into Tours
Tom Boonen confirmed he's the favorite for the green jersey this year, exploding out of a catfight to take the stage win.
Boonen actually used McEwen as his leadout man, while Credit Agricole was trying to build a train for Hushovd, trailing Jaan Kirsipuu with 100 meters to ride.
McEwen really leaned hard into Stuart O'Grady, and race officials "relegated" McEwen to the back of the field for his frustration-driven maneuvering.
Top 10:
1) Tom Boonen, Quick Step
2) Wrolich, Gerolsteiner
3) Stuart O'Grady, Cofidis
4) Bernhard Eisel, Française des Jeux
5) Allan Davis, Liberty Seguros
6) Robert Forster, Gerolsteiner
7) Magnus Backstedt, Liquigas-Bianchi
8) Anthony Geslin, Bouyges Telecom
9) Thor Hushovd, Credit Agricole
10) Angelo Furlan, Domina Vacanze
Credit Agricole needs some new moves: Looked like they were executing exactly to plan, but Hushovd couldn't bring either the funk or the noise.
And I didn't see Baden Cooke: Are FdJeux switching off their sprinters, with Eisel one day, Cooke another, or is it every FDJ sprinter for himself?
Zabriskie will hold the yellow jersey into tomorrow's team time trial showdown, likely to be between Phonak, CSC, and Discovery. CSC will start last, and have intermediate splits for every other team, since the lead the team competition.
Erik Dekker takes over the King of the Mountains jersey, while Boonen holds the green sprinters' jersey and Fabian Cancellara hangs on to the white jersey for riders under 25. Boonen is sneaking up on Cancellara: He's now 3rd, 7 seconds behind Cancellara. Dekker also wins the red race numbers for most aggressive rider for the tremendous heart he showed trying to keep his break away to the finish.
Also:
cyclingnews.com | Full stage results
Posted by Frank Steele on July 4, 2005 in Erik Dekker, Magnus Backstedt, Robbie McEwen, Stage results, Stuart O'Grady, Thor Hushovd, Tom Boonen, Top Stories | Permalink
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Comments
Is there any live audio or video coverage of teh race available to U.S. residents? There used to be race radio in english at letour.fr but now there is none.
Posted by: Brian at Jul 4, 2005 1:10:51 PM
I'm afraid the official web presence this year provided by OLN is significantly worse than before. OLN's website is either down or outdated at any given moment. case in point is the OLN Image Gallery of the tour that contains a single picture of lance....in a Postal jersey. The video page has micro-snippets of video. Pretty sad for a media company that was trying to sell streaming video of other races. Hate to say it but looks like the money put in by advertisers is shrinking, hence the lower quality coverage.
Posted by: speckled_trout at Jul 4, 2005 2:00:29 PM
More funny, insightful commentary from dailypeloton.com's Stage 3 roundup:
***
1552 CEST - 61km left. The riders are having a go at the "King of the Bushes" competition... there is a nice, remote field with no fans, so the riders are pulling over and pulling down the lycra.
...
The gap is down to 1' 44". But the peloton is slacking the pace right now with men like Armstrong having a go at the King of the Bushes. For those of you who don't know, it is very taboo to ride hard when a big rider like Armstrong pulls over for a natural break. If you want to get yelled at by a veteran, try attacking while a man like Armstrong is tapping a kidney off the back.
Doing stuff like that will get you on lots of people's "flick list" in a hurry.
1601 CEST - ...Davitamon-Lotto and Quick Step are still sharing the pacemaking at the point of the pack. The riders off the front will reach the 2nd "climb" of the day ahead of the peloton. They now have a 2' 05" gap, so that natural break took the, um, impetus out of the peloton for a moment...
Posted by: EWM at Jul 4, 2005 6:04:33 PM
(DP.com quotes cont.)
***
So [Laurent] Brochard, known for having the worst haircut this side of a 1980s Whitesnake concert, could have been working with Voeckler on that first climb of the day. But he is also a man who can climb very well and threaten for victory in the race for the Polka Dot Jersey.
In the race for bad hair in this year's Tour, here are the current standings: 1) Laurent "Le Mullet" Brochard, 2) Vladimir "Shag" Karpets (who is working a Kurt Cobain after mopping the house floors with his head look), 3) Tom Boonen (who is still earning points for that awful psuedo-mohawk mullet he had during the classics).
Posted by: EWM at Jul 4, 2005 6:07:02 PM
