Terpstra Takes Stage Three Win and Yellow Jersey In Dauphine-Libere

It's not often that a breakaway makes it to the finish line in a multi-stage race because the overall classification riders or the sprinters always want to try and win for themselves to cement their positions against their rivals. 

Most of the time, a breakaway goes clear early in the stage, gets some camera time, maybe builds up a lead of seven or more minutes, then the chase from behind occurs and the riders' hopes once again become doomed. 

Today, though, five riders broke away, featuring Rémi Pauriol (Cofidis), Ludovic Turpin (AG2R ), Iñigo Landaluze (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Yuriy Trofimov (Bouygues Telecom), and Niki Terpstra (Milram). 

They proved that dreams really can come true.

Today's 182-kilometer stage into the city of Saint-Etienne featured many rolling hills towards the finish, and actually did look conducive to a breakaway, provided the chase from behind was weak.

And weak it was.  The sprinters' teams tried to reel in the breakaway.  At the maximum, the breakaway had an advantage of six minutes with 100 kilometers remaining.  That in and of itself was not very dangerous and is normally manageable. 

However, the chase never fully formed.  Francaise des Jeux began the reeling in, but they soon stopped and let other teams do the work.  Race leader Cadel Evan's Silence-Lotto team was also not making up the distance.

With only 25 kilometers remaining, the breakaway still had almost three minutes' advantage.  A rule of thumb on many stages is that a strong chasing attempt should reel in the breakaway on the tune of one minute every 10 kilometers.  The breakaway riders could start dreaming.

The catch did not happen.  The five riders up front were left to battle for the stage win.  Terpstra did a lot of pulling for the group in the last 10 kilometers because he had enough advantage on the road to take the yellow jersey if they kept it up.

Not only did he help their time gap, Terpstra also outfoxed his companions to take the stage win ahead of Turpin and Trofimov. 

The Milram rider, whose professional career has been known for his featuring in many unsuccessful breakaway attempts, took it all today, getting the stage win and the leader's yellow jersey.

Alberto Contador (Astana) and Cadel Evans now sit slightly more than one minute behind Terpstra. 

Terpstra is convinced that his minute advantage can be enough to hold off the two TT titans in tomorrow's decisive 42-kilometer time trial.  That may be unlikely, however.