The short third stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné 2012, animated by two Spanish riders, finally ended in a sprint ... even though this sprint was pretty much disturbed by a massive crash in the last 500 meters. The young Edvald Boasson Hagen was the lucky one and thus won this 3rd stage. In the general classification there are no changes while the King of the Mountains classification puts Giovanni Bernaudeau back at the first place.

The summary of the 3rd stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné 2012: Givors > La Clayette

A 167 kilometer long stage between Givors and La Clayette was on the programme as the 3rd stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné 2012 with 3 referenced climbs in the first half of the stage (the Côte de Saint-André of the 3rd category and the Côtes de Crêtes and de Vindry of the 4th category). It took place in average weather conditions with rain at the start and a grey sky during almost the whole stage.

After the 3 abandons in yesterday's stage (read the summary of the 2nd stage for more information), 172 riders came to the start of the stage in Givors and right from the start two Spanish riders decided to attack: Luis Angel Maté Mardones (Cofidis) and Egoi Martinez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) and after a little bit less than ten kilometers their gap was already up to about 5 minutes 30.

While these two riders shared most of the points on top of the different climbs, Giovanni Bernaudeau (Team Europcar) took the remaining points on top of the Côte de Saint-André (where the gap was up to 6 minutes; the rider of the Europcar Team thus took over the lead in the King of the Mountains classification again) while Luis Angel Maté and Egoi Martinez get the first and second place there, just like on the Côte des Crêtes and on the Côte de Vindry where Bernaudeau again takes 1 point, thus extending his lead on Blel Kadri (AG2R La Mondiale) to 2 points.

While the peloton adopts a quiet rhythm, the two riders in the breakaway do the same and the gap thus stabilises around 3 minutes 30 for quite some time. The average speed in the 3 first hours of the stage was only 35.5 kilometers an hour. It almost looked like all riders decided to keep some forces for the individual time trial between Villié-Morgon and Bourg-en-Bresse tomorrow ...

Thanks to the FDJ BigMat and Argos-Shimano teams working in front of the peloton, the gap finally starts to go down (to 2'40" at 50 kilometers from the finish), since these two teams count on a bunch sprint respectively for Nacer Bouhanni and John Degenkolb.

At 25 kilometers from the finish, the gap still is 1'25" but it continues to go down and reaches the one minute mark at 20 kilometers from the finish. At 16 kilometers from the finish the two leading riders are finally taken back by the peloton and the fight to find a good position at the head of the peloton can thus start.

In the last two kilometers, John Degenkolb sees all his hoped on a sprint victory fly away with a flat tyre ... Philippe Gilbert (BMC Racing Team) decides at 1.5 km from the finish that it will anyway not be a day where we'll simply offer the victory to a sprinter and the Belgian champion thus does a solo attack at that point but just before the final straight line he's taken back ... just before a massive crash which disturbs the sprint, sprint which is won by Edvald Boasson Hagen (Team Sky).

The classifications of the Critérium du Dauphiné 2012 after the 3rd stage

The classification of the stage 3/ Givors > La Clayette

Here's the top 10 of the sprint of this 3rd stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné 2012:

1/ Edvald Boasson Hagen (Team Sky) - 4h22'13"
2/ Gerald Ciolek (Omega Pharma-QuickStep)
3/ Borut Bozic (Astana)
4/ Roger Kluge (Argos-Shimano)
5/ Murilo Fischer (Garmin-Barracuda)
6/ Tony Gallopin (Radioshack-Nissan)
7/ Davide Cimolai (Lampre-ISD)
8/ Michael Matthews (Rabobank)
9/ Sébastien Hinault (AG2R La Mondiale)
10/ Jonathan Cantwell (Team Saxo Bank)

The general classification

No changes in the general classification of the Critérium du Dauphiné 2012 after this 3rd stage:

1/ Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) - 13h07'55"
2/ Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team) - +0'01"
3/ Andriy Grivko (Astana) - +0'02"
4/ Carlos Barredo (Rabobank)
5/ Tony Martin (Omega Pharma-QuickStep)

The classification by points

Thanks to his 6th place in today's stage, Tony Gallopin (Radioshack-Nissan) took the points for the points classification which allowed him to get over Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team) who wore the green jersey so far:

1/ Tony Gallopin (Radioshack-Nissan) - 51 points
2/ Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team) - 41 points
3/ Edvald Boasson Hagen (Team Sky) - 36 points
4/ Gerald Ciolek (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) - 36 points
5/ Julien Simon (Saur-Sojasun) - 35 points

King of the Mountains classification

Since Giovanni Bernaudeau (Team Europcar) took the remaining points on 2 of the 3 difficulties of the day, he takes over the lead from Blel Kadri (AG2R La Mondiale) who took the polka dot jersey from him yesterday:

1/ Giovanni Bernaudeau (Team Europcar) - 38 points
2/ Blel Kadri (AG2R La Mondiale) - 36 points
3/ Christophe Kern (Team Europcar) - 31 points
4/ Nicolas Edet (Cofidis, le crédit en ligne) - 29 points
5/ David Moncoutié (Cofidis, le crédit en ligne) - 29 points

Best young riders classification

In addition to the classification by points, Tony Gallopin also remains the leader of the best young riders classification. The white jersey will be worn by Rein Taaramae (Cofidis) tomorrow in the time trial:

1/ Tony Gallopin (Radioshack-Nissan) - 13h08'07"
2/ Rein Taaramae (Cofidis, le crédit en ligne) - +0'03"
3/ Wilco Kelderman (Rabobank) - +0'08"
4/ Cyril Gautier (Team Europcar) - +0'20"
5/ Dominik Nerz (Liquigas-Cannondale)

door Thomas Vergouwen
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this publication is published in: Critérium du Dauphiné 2012 | Criterium du Dauphiné

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