Hi folks. I am back again with some impressions of what I could see today in the Tour de San Luis. It was not my intention to cover only the sprint stages, I just couldn't make it on time yesterday to see what happened on Stage 2. It is just how it unfolded. So we continue to play by ear here and try to bring you a little bit of what I saw.

On the flip...

First you can go to a quick recap of Stage 2. The only comment that I will make is that the young Rafael Valls (22 years old) looked good at the top of the climb (keep that name folks, probably we will here it this year a couple more times) still the Footon tan jersey did not. But a win is a win and the best thing for young Rafa is that he continues to wear white and orange (leader) for one more day as today's stage was a sprinters's stage.

Regardind Stage 3, temperatures were high 38 to 40C, some wind was expected but the expectations did not materialize. The stage was the longer one of the tour with almost 200KM but It was 100% downhill. As a matter of fact I can't remember having seen such a consistent "downhilly" profile ever.

How it unfolded: the inevitable break (4 men) got way early in the stage. The men on the certainly doomed break were Edwin Avila (Col) ; Gonzalo Garrido (Chi); Mauricio Morandi (Bra) - Scott: Andrew Guptil (USA) Jamis-Sutter. The break's chances of success were very low in such a downhill but it was useful for chilean Garrido as he was able to scoop enough points to were white and green (points) tomorrow. One thing that got my attention is that at least one of the intermediate sprints was just a line drawn on the road, I guess I am used to watch higher profile races.

Leaky and Katusha started to do their thing in the bunch and close to the end was grupo compacto again. Leaky and Katusha drove the pace hard on the downhill (yes downhill!!) sprint and 3 riders quickly distinguished themselves from the main bunch: Chicchi (ITA - Leaky), Loddo (ITA - Diquigiovanni blablablabla) and Napolitano (ITA - Katusha). Chicchi run out of gas a few meters from the finish and Loddo beat Napolitano by a wheel. The 3 riders got to the finish far from the rest of the bunch showing the italian speed tradition.

Tomorrow is time for the chrono men to show up. Nibali?? Buehler??