CYCLING TOUR DE FRANCE:PETER SAGAN is clearly special, so much so the history books need to be consulted a mere four days into his debut Tour de France.
In sprinting up to the citadel here ahead of an elite group of some 60 riders that was split to bits by a crash just before the final corner Sagan showed the same cool head and immense strength he had displayed in winning on Sunday. But he had also achieved a level of success no Tour debutant had managed since the German Dietrich Thurau, winner of the prologue and stage two in 1977.
How far Sagan will go remains to be seen but what he is achieving here is unique in the modern era. He could, on this showing, depart his first Tour with a hatful of stages in his pocket and quite possibly the green jersey to boot, a feat that would be reminiscent of Eddy Merckx’s debut in 1969 or that of Freddy Maertens in 1976.
“It’s like watching Messi play football, you tip your hat and smile,” said Team Sky principal Dave Brailsford.
Sagan’s win came at the end of a stage that demanded an extremely cool head and a personal contract with Lady Luck. Since 2008 the Tour de France organiser, Christian Prudhomme, has been seeking to liven up the race with the inclusion of hillier stages and a proliferation of hilltop finishes. This was a stage that exemplified his race routes, with five small hills in the final kilometres, roads that twisted and turned, little climbs that gave way to vertiginous descents that fell into a village with road furniture or a hairpin with poor camber.
The problem with Prudhomme’s predilection is it introduces a lottery element into the race because a route of this kind virtually guarantees crashes. Those who drew the losing tickets included France’s hero of last year Thomas Voeckler, who was seven minutes down at the end after being caught behind a crash with 30km to go that split the field in three and left the Spaniard Jose-Joaquin Rojas with a broken collarbone. Ireland’s debutant, Daniel Martin, lost more than five minutes while Sky lost Kanstantsin Siutsou, who broke his shin in a mass pile-up 52km from the finish.
It could, however, have been worse. As what remained of the field belted up towards the citadel, with Sagan to the fore ahead of Boasson-Hagen, the Spaniard Oscar Freire tried to go through a gap that existed only in his imagination and brought down most of the lead group. Chris Froome’s nightmare start to the Tour continued, as he flew up into the air with his fall broken as he slid down an advertising hoarding. Wiggins and his team-mate Michael Rogers came to a dead halt.
No fewer than 51 of the 63-strong lead group were held up but all were credited with the same time as Sagan, as the race rules state, apart from the hardest mountain-top finishes, if a rider crashes in the final three kilometres he is considered to have finished in the group where he was riding when the crash took place. As a result the top 10 looked largely the same as it had in the morning, with only the Belgian Philippe Gilbert dropping away after losing nearly eight minutes.
It was also a day for the Tour’s more exotic nations: two Slovaks – the second Peter Velits – sandwiching a Norwegian in the top three, with an Australian, Evans, and an Irishman, Nicolas Roche, on their heels.
Guardian Service
Stage Three(Orchies – Boulogne-sur- Mer, 197km) – 1 Peter Sagan (Svk) Liquigas-Cannondale 4hrs 42mins 58secs, 2 E Boasson Hagen (Nor) Sky Procycling at 1sec, 3 P Velits (Svk) Omega Pharma- Quickstep, 4 F Cancellara (Swi) RadioShack-Nissan, 5 M Albasini (Swi) Orica GreenEdge Cycling Team, 6 C Evans (Aus) BMC Racing Team, 7 Nicolas Roche (Irl) AG2R La Mondiale, 8 S Sanchez Gonzalez (Spa) Euskaltel — Euskadi, 9 B Mollema (Ned) Rabobank Cycling Team, 10 V Nibali (Ita) Liquigas-Cannondale, all same time. Other Irish: 105 Daniel Martin, Garmin-Sharp-Barracuda,+ 5 min 5 sec.
General classification– 1 Fabian Cancellara (Swi) RadioShack-Nissan 14hrs 45mins 30secs, 2 B Wiggins (Gbr) Sky Procycling at 7secs, 3 S Chavanel (Fra) Omega Pharma-Quickstep at same time, 4 T Van Garderen (USA) BMC Racing Team at 10, 5 E Boasson Hagen (Nor) Sky Pro- cycling at 11, 6 D Menchov (Rus) Katusha Team at 13, 7 C Evans (Aus) BMC Racing at 17, 8 V Nibali (Ita) Liquigas- Cannondale at 18, 9 R Hesjedal (Can) Garmin – Sharp at same time, 10 A Kloden (Ger) Radio Shack-Nissan at 19. Irish: 20 N Roche, AG2R La Mondiale at 25, 87 D Martin, Garmin-Sharp-Barracuda at 5min 28.
