Pursuit of Green - Stage 3

by jsallee00 on Jul 6, 2009 1:52 PM EDT

If you were to look at today's profile and then look at the results to see Cav and Thor at the top, it would be easy to ho-hum the stage. But wow, what a stage. In the end it's likely to be a tale full of sound and fury for the Yellow, but not for Green. Todays Top Ten:

.	CAVENDISH Mark	71	TEAM COLUMBIA - HTC	35 pts
2.	HUSHOVD Thor	6	CERVELO TEST TEAM	30 pts
3.	LEMOINE Cyril	191	SKIL-SHIMANO	26 pts
4.	DUMOULIN Samuel	123	COFIDIS LE CREDIT EN LIGNE	24 pts
5.	PINEAU Jérôme	156	QUICK STEP	22 pts
6.	CANCELLARA Fabian	33	TEAM SAXO BANK	20 pts
7.	WEGMANN Fabian	188	TEAM MILRAM	19 pts
8.	BEPPU Fumiyuki	192	SKIL-SHIMANO	18 pts
9.	BOUET Maxime	172	AGRITUBEL	17 pts
10.	GERDEMANN Linus	181	TEAM MILRAM	16 pts

and the top 10 through Stage 3

1.	CAVENDISH Mark	71	TEAM COLUMBIA - HTC	70 pts
2.	HUSHOVD Thor	6	CERVELO TEST TEAM	54 pts
3.	DUMOULIN Samuel	123	COFIDIS LE CREDIT EN LIGNE	36 pts
4.	CANCELLARA Fabian	33	TEAM SAXO BANK	35 pts
5.	BOUET Maxime	172	AGRITUBEL	31 pts
6.	FARRAR Tyler	53	GARMIN - SLIPSTREAM	30 pts
7.	LEMOINE Cyril	191	SKIL-SHIMANO	26 pts
8.	FEILLU Romain	175	AGRITUBEL	26 pts
9.	DE KORT Koen	193	SKIL-SHIMANO	25 pts
10.	AUGE Stéphane	122	COFIDIS LE CREDIT EN LIGNE	24 pts
11.	MARTIN Tony	76	TEAM COLUMBIA - HTC	24 pts

More thoughts after the jump

So there were two big winners today- Cav and Thor. Thor was the only Green jersey contender to be able to make the move when Columbia put the hurt on. In the end he gave it a great effort, but couldn't match the speed of Cav.

Following up on various tactics that were being discussed yesterday, I saw this relevant tweet from Robbie Hunter:

RobbieHunterMust say can't believe Roulston never attacked a km to go to expose Cavs last man and leave him short for the kick!woulda been my orders.9 minutes ago from UberTwitter

We once again saw that trying to move around Cav in a sprint is more of a job than anyone seems up to. Clearly Cav is the best sprinter in the field right now, but let's also acknowledge that Mark Renshaw is the best leadout guy in the world. His leadout today was outstanding. With the headwind, he knew he had to get Cav close to the line, and he did, that was a hell of a pull.

The big losers today were Boonen, Freire, Benna... all the guys that also missed yesterday. These guys are all 70 points behind Cav and 54 behind Thor. Tyler at least has his 30 from yesterday, so missing today won't hurt quite as much.

It was a hard effort today by a lot of guys, tomorrow is going to be hard on a lot of riders as well. Wednesday stage will be a test of who's legs are responding well.

Tweet Comment 11 comments | 0 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

Oops

I stepped on your toes a bit with my overall winners and losers. I’m going over there to put a link to your piece.

Your power is turning our darkness to dawn,
Roll on Columbia, Roll on!

by Chris Fontecchio on Jul 6, 2009 1:57 PM EDT reply actions

choosing..

benna over thor for my vds team is my biggest regret…aside from also missing out on GHH.

by Huntero on Jul 6, 2009 5:02 PM EDT reply actions

This one goes to 11

Maybe since he has the same number of points as Auge, you should include Martin? Cool thing to keep track of—thanks for doing it. You had the actual points in your first edition, though—I’d love to see you continue that. Here they are as of today:

1 Mark Cavendish (GBr) Team Columbia – HTC 70 pts
2 Thor Hushovd (Nor) Cervelo Test Team 54
3 Samuel Dumoulin (Fra) Cofidis, Le Credit en Ligne 36
4 Fabian Cancellara (Swi) Team Saxo Bank 35
5 Maxime Bouet (Fra) Agritubel 31
6 Tyler Farrar (USA) Garmin – Slipstream 30
7 Cyril Lemoine (Fra) Skil-Shimano 26
8 Romain Feillu (Fra) Agritubel 26
9 Koen de Kort (Ned) Skil-Shimano 25
10 Stéphane Auge (Fra) Cofidis, Le Credit en Ligne 24
11 Tony Martin (Ger) Team Columbia – HTC 24

Among his many talents, Mark Cavendish can make it rain in Southern California--Chris Jones, ESPN Magazine

by majope on Jul 6, 2009 5:17 PM EDT reply actions