Tyler Farrar wins third stage and Thor Hushovd takes overall lead in 2011 Tour De France
Garmin-Cervelo team’s Tyler Farrar won the third stage of 2011 Tour De France on Monday, July 4. His team-mate, Thor Hushovd, maintained his overall leader’s yellow jersey.
The race started in Olonne-sur-Mer and ended in Redon. The 27-year-old Farrar took a total of 4 hours, 40 minutes and 21 seconds to cover the distance of 198 kilometres.
As he crossed the finish-line, Farrar made the ‘W’ sign on his two hands in honour to his close friend, Wouter Weylandt, who died in the third stage of Tour of Giro d’ltalia 2011.
After winning the stage, Farrar said, "I've had a lot of ups and downs but in the end I wanted to come back and do something special and this is certainly the biggest stage that you can do that. I've trained hard and I could feel I was getting stronger over the last few weeks.”
Romain Feillu of Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling was the runner-up and Jose Joaquin Rojas Gil of Movistar finished third. Mark Cavendish of HTC-Highroad was in good form and tried his best to take the victory, but he failed and gained the fifth place ahead of race leader, Hushovd.
A group five riders made their first breakaway, which include Mickael Delage (FDJ), Ivan Gutierrez (Movistar), Maxime Bouet (Ag2r), Ruben Perez (Eusaltkel) and Niki Terpstra (Quick Step). With 80 kilometres to go, all of them worked together and build a lead of eight minutes.
Delage maintained his pace and jumped from the back to front and gave a hard chase to two riders, Guiterrez and Terpstra. Delage took 20 points and easily beat other cyclists in the intermediate sprint.
In the final 5 kilometres, Tony Martin of the HTC-Highroad team led a bunch with his three team-mates, Matt Goss, Mark Renshaw and Cavendish. Marco Marcato tried his best to take a lead in the final 2 kilometres, but he failed. However, Farrar increased his pace and with the help of his team he crossed the finish-line without any difficulty.
Farrar further added, "I'm so glad I could finish the job off. We have a very professional and experienced lead-out and we know what to do - I didn't have to start sprinting until 150 metres to go and it's hard to beat someone when you set them up like that."
Denis Galimzyanov of Katusha took the title of Young rider ahead of Edvald Boasson Hagen and Geraint Thomas.
Thor Hushovd took the overall lead with a time of 9 hours, 46 minutes and 46 seconds. David Millar was the runner-up, while Cadel Evans was in the third spot with 1 second down to Thor.
The next stage will start in Lorient and end in Mûr-de-Bretagne. All the riders will cover the distance of 172 kilometres.
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