Thomas De Gendt of Vacansoleil-DCM joined Rein Taaramae of Cofidis in a break at the 48-km mark and stayed away while Taaramae faded, to bring Vacansoleil its third stage win of 2012 Paris Nice.
De Gendt cleared the day’s final climb, the Cat 1 Col de Vence, with 12 seconds on Taaramae and a 12-minute advantage over the peloton, which was not much concerned by either rider, as neither was a General Classification threat.
De Gendt won the stage by 11 minutes. Taaramae never caught the Vacansoleil rider; he crashed on the twisting descent but managed to take second, 6:17 behind.
“Taaramae was an ideal ally,” De Gendt told cyclingnews.com “On the Col de Vence he tried to drop me, but I felt so much stronger than him. At the moment, everyone on the team is in good form. It was a nice stage and a nice finish.”
Sky’s Bradley Wiggins kept himself surrounded by teammates near the front of the peloton. Wiggins was right behind the sprinters who fought for third, crossing the line with all his GC competitors.
The big loser of the race was Omega Pharma-QuickStep’s GC contender Levi Leipheimer. Leiphheimer crashed early, but got himself back to the front of the peloton, only to crash hard on the descent from Col de Vence.
After this crash, Leipheimer and his team had to take serious risks, as Movistar was setting a scorching pace at the head of the peloton, trying to gain time for Alejandro Valverde.
Catching the back of the peloton with four teammates, the Omega riders rounded a curve and found a police motorcycle guarding a fallen Lampre rider. Omega rider Dries Devenyns plowed into the bike and Leipheimer slammed Devenyns.
By the time both sore riders picked themselves up and retrieved their battered bikes, there was no real reason to chase; there simply wasn’t enough time left in the stage to catch the leaders. Leipheimer, who had ridden a perfect race and was only 11 seconds behinds the leader, had his race ended by three unfortunate accidents.
