Tour de France 2012 Stage 3 Standings and Results: Crashes Shake Up Leaders

The drama continued and even went up a notch on the third stage of the 2012 Tour de France.

The 197 km ride from Orchies to Boulogne-sur-Mer had an undulating tail taking the wind out of the pure sprinters and opening up the stage to the all-rounders.

As expected, there was the inevitable breakaway which saw polka-dot jersey holder, Saxo Bank’s Michael Morkov, repeat his attacks of the previous two stages, this time with Andriy Grivko (Astana), Giovanni Bernaudeau (Europcar), Ruben Perez (Euskaltel –Euskadi) and Sebastien Minard (AG2R La Mondiale).

Of course, it was inevitable that they would be caught, but not before chaos ensued back in the peloton.

As the chase ramped up in earnest, three major crashes wreaked havoc amongst the peloton—the second resulting in Konstansin Sivtsov (Team Sky) abandoning the tour as a result of his injuries.

The third crash was the one that caused the most problems. A touch of wheels at the head of the peloton brought down many riders, including Orica-Green Edge rider Simon Gerrans. Movistar’s Jose Rojas was forced to also abandon the race through injuries.

The crash also served to split the peloton in mid-chase leaving a number of top riders stranded—including Mark Cavendish (Sky), Thomas Voeckler(Europcar), Philippe Gilbert (BMC) and Christian Vande Velde (Garmin Sharp Barracuda).

The breakaway was gathered in within 10km of the finish and immediately Omega Pharma-Quick Step rider Sylvain Chavanel made a break for the finish only to be overhauled by the bunch and allowing green jersey holder from Liquigas, Peter Sagan, to win the uphill sprint to claim his second stage win with a somewhat eccentric celebration as he crossed the line.

Stage 3 brought about a significant shakeup in the general classification with Katusha’s Denis Menchov and BMC’s Philippe Guilbert dropping out of the top 10, but Cadel Evans and Bradley Wiggins maintain their places as does yellow jersey holder Fabian Cancellara.

Morkov retains his polka-dot jersey, however the toll of being in the breakaways on each of these three stages was obvious late in the stage as he hit the wall and went backwards at a rapid rate.

General classification leaders at the end of Stage 3

1.	CANCELLARA Fabian	RADIOSHACK-NISSAN	14h 45' 30''
2.	WIGGINS Bradley	SKY PROCYCLING	14h 45' 37''	+ 00' 07''
3.	CHAVANEL Sylvain	OMEGA PHARMA-QUICK STEP	14h 45' 37''	+ 00' 07''
4.	VAN GARDEREN Tejay	BMC RACING TEAM	14h 45' 40''	+ 00' 10''
5.	BOASSON HAGEN Edvald	SKY PROCYCLING	14h 45' 41''	+ 00' 11''
6.	EVANS Cadel	BMC RACING TEAM	14h 45' 47''	+ 00' 17''
7.	NIBALI Vincenzo	LIQUIGAS-CANNONDALE	14h 45' 48''	+ 00' 18''
8.	HESJEDAL Ryder	GARMIN-SHARP-BARRACUDA	14h 45' 48''	+ 00' 18''
9.	KLÖDEN Andréas	RADIOSHACK-NISSAN	14h 45' 49''	+ 00' 19''
10.	MOLLEMA Bauke	RABOBANK CYCLING TEAM	14h 45' 51''	+ 00' 21''