CYCLING/Paris-Nice Race: Riders competing in the Paris-Nice race called off the third stage yesterday as a mark of respect to Kazakhstan's Andrei Kivilev, who died after a crash in St Etienne on Tuesday.

Kivilev's Cofidis team-mates crossed the finish line together at Pont du Gard, a dozen metres ahead of the rest of the bunch, who had refused to race. The cyclists held a minute's silence before the start and cruised at a slow pace on the roads between Le Puy-en-Velay and Pont du Gard.

Former Tour de France winner Richard Virenque, one of the circuit's senior riders, took the initiative to cancel the stage. Virenque, accompanied by team-mate Frank Vandebroucke, who was in tears, went to the Cofidis team bus before the start.

"We are going to go to the line but there will not be any race today," Virenque told the Cofidis riders. "We will ride to the Pont du Gard all together and you guys will cross the line in front. Everybody is okay with this," he said.

The 29-year-old Kivilev, leader of the Cofidis team, sustained serious head injuries in a fall following a collision with another rider around 40 km from the finish of Tuesday's stage between La Clayette and Saint-Etienne.

He had not been wearing a helmet and went into a coma immediately. Kivilev underwent surgery overnight but died in the early hours of yesterday morning.

After uncertainty over whether the Cofidis team would stay in the race, team leader Nico Mattan met Paris-Nice race manager Jean-Marie Leblanc to tell him his team had decided to continue.

Kivilev, who finished fourth in the Tour de France in 2001, was the first cyclist to die in competition since Spain's Manuel San Roma in the Tour de Catalunya in 1999. He lived in nearby Sorbiers, close to where the accident happened, and leaves a six-month-old son Leonard.