Critérium du Dauphiné (st. 3)

Late move by Spaniard from Movistar Team at Dauphiné's stage three, his eight-man escape alongside Voigt (TFR) caught with 8km left. Szmyd, Intxausti crash; Basque in pain

Furious pace towards the Col du Béal yesterday in the 2014 Critérium du Dauphiné, added to a demanding stage of stage three Tuesday -the longest in this year’s event, over 194km from Ambert to Le Teil- and head winds, caused a delay for the bunch of almost fifty minutes over the scheduled time of arrival. Despite continuous ups and downs in the parcours, the bunch always kept the three original escapees -Kadri (ALM), Berhane (EUC) and Benedetti (TNE)- under control and reeled them back in after the downhill of Mûre (Cat-2), following a crash which caught Sylwester Szmyd and Beñat Intxausti. The duo made it safely to the finish, though the Basque rider underwent preliminary medical checks due to pain in his shoulder; no fractures were revealed, yet Intxausti will decide to continue or not depending on his evolution overnight.

Movistar Team’s share of protagonism was covered today by Imanol Erviti. An attack by Jens Voigt (TFR), responded by the Spaniard, created an eight-man attempt which reached an advantage of 45 seconds, only caught with 8km from the end as several teams with sprinters pull their full strength at the lead of the peloton to guarantee a bunch sprint finish. Arndt (GIA) narrowly beat Boeckmans (LTB), photo finish confirming, as all main favourites reached the finish together, with Chris Froome (SKY) in yellow before Wednesday’s tricky finale. The Col de Manse (Cat-2) will be crested just 12km from the finish of stage four in Gap.

Home picture (c): Jennifer Lafarge