The stage from Saint-Junien Saint-Yrieix-la-Perche to Aurillac, disturbed by the snow, was won by the young Slovakian rider (he's only 20 years old) Peter Sagan (Liquigas-Doimo). Lars Boom, who finished 27 secondes loses his yellow jersey to the oldest rider of the race, the German rider Jens Voigt of Team Saxo Bank.

A summary of the stage Saint-Junien > Aurillac

This morning the start in Saint-Junien was a bit special ... indeed, with the snow which fell in the morning and with the temperatures below 0°C the roads around the city had become slippery. Therefore, the organiser decided to let the stage start in Saint-Yrieix-la-Perche at 53 kilometers from where the start was initially planned and to remove the first intermediate sprint which would have been in Coussac-Bonneval (since the distance from the start became too small). That's why the riders left with the team buses after the signature towards the start of the stage and the stage's route was thus reduced to 153 kilometers.

At 1PM the riders left for a 2 kilometer ride towards the final start. They were 170 to start, after yesterday's abandon of Hayden Roulston (HTC-Columbia) and with Grega Bole (Lampre-Farnese Vini) not starting today.

Right from the start several riders tried to attack but the peloton followed them each time and the whole bunch thus started together with the climb of the Côte de la Grande Renaudie. Laurent Mangel (Saur-Sojasun) arrives first on top and thus takes 4 additional points for his polka dot jersey, ahead of Pierrick Fédrigo (Bbox Bouygues Telecom) and Jean-Christophe Péraud (Omega Pharma-Lotto) who take respectively 2 and 1 points.

The first attack which seemed to work out was the one initiated by Albert Timmer (Skil-Shimano) who was joined by Stéphane Augé (Cofidis), but again this attack didn't last more than 2 kilometers. At kilometer 33 Yann Huguet (Skil-Shimano) finally places the right attack and forms a leading group with Nikolas Maes (Quick Step) and Jurgen Roelandts (Omega Pharma-Lotto). Their gap with the peloton is up to 7 minutes at the foot of the Côte de Sainte-Fortunade where Yann Huguet arrives first on top (7 points), ahead of Jurgen Roelandts (5 points) and Nikolas Maes (3 points). Laurent Mangel is the first rider of the peloton on top and thus takes 2 points, ahead of Koen de Kort (Skil-Shimano) who takes the last point.
At the top of the Côte de Sexcles the order in which the leading riders pass is the same as in the first climb and in the peloton Simon Geschke (Skil-Shimano) is the first to cross the line and to take 2 points ahead of Laurent Mangel (1 point).

The leading group is still ahead of the peloton at the intermediate sprint intermédiaire in Montvert where Roelandts passes the line first, ahead of Huguet and Maes. The peloton than approaches more and more and arrives 1'05" later at the sprint. With the peloton getting back quicly, Yann Huguet decides to continue alone at 23 kilometers from the finish. Jurgen Roelandts gets back with him a bit later but in the climb of the Côte de la Martinie at 6 kilometers from the finish they're finally taken back.

In this climb it's finally up to Nicolas Roche (AG2R La Mondiale) to attack. He manages to stretch the peloton and to create a break with the group with Luis Léon Sanchez (Caisse d'Epargne) but he never manages to really get away. He arrives first on top of the last climb and takes the 7 points ahead of Peter Sagan (Liquigas-Doimo, 5 points), Joaquim Rodriguez (Team Katusha, 3 points), Tony Martin (HTC-Columbia, 2 points) and Alberto Contador (Astana, 1 point).
In this small group, the winner of Paris-Nice 2007, Alberto Contador places another attack and forms a small group with Peter Sagan, Tony Martin, Jens Voigt (Saxo Bank) and Joaquim Rodriguez. None of these riders wants to take over from Contador and Jens Voigt finally takes the lead after the Spanish rider insisted hardly. Finally the youngest rider of this 68th edition of the Race to the sun has the best legs and sprints to victory, ahead of Joaquim Rodriguez. Nicolas Roche, who initiated the final selection, has to content himself with the 3rd place.

The stage result

Here's the top 10 of this stage:
1/ Peter Sagan (Liquigas-Doimo) - 3h44'28"
2/ Joaquim Rodriguez (Team Katusha)
3/ Nicolas Roche (AG2R La Mondiale)
4/ Jens Voigt (Team Saxo Bank) - +00'02"
5/ Tony Martin (HTC-Columbia)
6/ Alberto Contador (Astana)
7/ Mirco Lorenzetto (Lampre-Farnese Vini) - +00'06"
8/ Samuel Dumoulin (Cofidis)
9/ Xavier Florencio (Cervélo TestTeam)
10/ Marco Marcato (Vacansoleil Pro Cycling Team)

The photos at the start of the stage

This morning I went to the start of the stage in Saint-Junien. Because of the snow the stage didn't really start there but the riders came to sign in anyway.
> The photos of the start of Paris-Nice 2010 in Saint-Junien

The riders who abandoned

Joaquin Novoa Menedez (Cervélo TestTeam) and Marcel Sieberg (HTC-Columbia) abandoned the race during this stage. The American team thus only has 6 riders left.

The classifications

After this third stage there've been some changes in the classifications, especially in the overall classification, the King of the Mountain classification and the best young rider classification.

The general classification (yellow jersey)

Lars Boom (Rabobank), who took the yellow jersey at the start after having won the prologue in Montfort-l'Amaury (see the photos) loses his leader's jersey to the oldest rider of the peloton of this Paris-Nice 2010, Jens Voigt (Team Saxo Bank) who didn't have the role of team leader in this Danish team at the start of the Race to the sun (that was Frank Schleck). Luis Léon Sanchez (Caisse d'Epargne) keeps a good position, Peter Sagan (Liquigas-Doimo) jumps to the top and Alberto Contador (Astana) moves up as well.
1/ Jens Voigt (Team Saxo Bank) - 12h40'26"
2/ Peter Sagan (Liquigas-Doimo) - +00'06"
3/ Luis Léon Sanchez (Caisse d'Epargne) - +00'09"
4/ David Millar (Garmin-Transitions) - +00'12"
5/ Roman Kreuziger (Liquigas-Doimo) - +00'14"
6/ Lars Boom (Rabobank) - +00'20"
7/ Alberto Contador (Astana) - +00'20"
8/ Levi Leipheimer (Team Radioshack) - +00'24"
9/ Joaquim Rodriguez (Team Katusha) - +00'28"
10/ Xavier Tondo (Cervélo TestTeam) - +00'28"

The points classification (green jersey)

Thanks to the points at the finish, Peter Sagan not only takes the stage victory but also the green jersey which was on Luis Léon Sanchez' shoulders today.
1/ Peter Sagan (Liquigas-Doimo) - 63 points
2/ Jens Voigt (Team Saxo Bank) - 55 points
3/ Luis Léon Sanchez (Caisse d'Epargne) - 40 points
4/ Alberto Contador (Astana) - 37 points
5/ Lars Boom (Rabobank) - 36 points

King of the Mountain (polka dot jersey)

Yann Huguet took quite a lot of points for this classification in today's stage, but not enough to take over the polka dot jersey from Laurent Mangel.
1/ Laurent Mangel (Saur-Sojasun) - 18 points
2/ Yann Huguet (Skil-Shimano) 14 points
3/ Jürgen Roelandts (Omega Pharma-Lotto) - 10 points
4/ Nicolas Roche (AG2R La Mondiale) - 7 points
5/ Nikolas Maes (Quick Step) - 7 points

Best young rider's classification (white jersey)

The youngest rider of this 68th Paris-Nice is now also the best young rider.
1/ Peter Sagan (Liquigas-Doimo) - 12h40'32"
2/ Roman Kreuziger (Liquigas-Doimo) - +00'08"
3/ Lars Boom (Rabobank) - +00'14"
4/ Tony Martin (HTC-Columbia) - +00'32"
5/ Reine Taaramae (Cofidis) - +00'39"

The other stages of Paris-Nice 2010

For any further information about Paris-Nice 2010, you can click on one of the following links:
> The Paris-Nice 2010 route, stage profiles, time and route schedules and Google Maps/Google Earth
> The list of participating riders for Paris-Nice 2010 with their numbers
> The photos of the prologue of Paris-Nice 2010 in Montfort-l'Amaury
> The photos of the finish of Paris-Nice 2010 in Limoges
> The photos of the start of Paris-Nice 2010 in Saint-Junien

door Thomas Vergouwen
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this publication is published in: Paris-Nice | Paris-Nice 2010

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