Etoile: Dumoulin Bests the Break!

Samuel Dumoulin's hopes for a repeat title are all but over, but at the end of the week he will probably have more to look back on than most. Dumoulin took stage 3 Friday by watching and riding the breakaways perfectly and then taking the final sprint for glory.

It may not be quite as difficult as an entire GC title, but the degree of difficulty in today's stage was quite difficult because of all the breakaways and attacks on the climbs throughout the day. One wrong move (like Dumoulin made back on Wednesday to get himself out of contention) and you're looking at a 7 minute deficit or possibly even a DNF.

But he was content to play the waiting game for a while...

Marseillaise winner Jeremy Roy launched the first attack along with many strong riders like eventual GC leader Johnny Hoogerland and high finishers Cyril Gautier and Pierrick Fedrigo. But they attacked entirely too early, and were reeled in with over 50 kms remaining. But the problem with that was that the peloton caught them too quickly and immediately more breakaway groups tried to escape.

I'm not even going to bother trying to name them all because you would get lost reading them and I'd get lost naming them, so let's just skip ahead to the big one.

Dumoulin was not the only strong rider in that group. Johnny Hoogerland, Maxime Bouet, Jerome Coppel, Anthony Ravard and other major challengers looked like they would break this entire race open into a final 2 day showdown among about 7 or 8 riders but the peloton turned the jets on at the end and pulled their advantage down to just 15 seconds, leaving most in the main field behind by just around 30 seconds.

But Dumoulin outsprinted Johnny Hoogerland and Marco Marcato to the line, but it was Hoogerland who will be dressed in the leader's outfit tomorrow as his time bonus puts him 1 second above Ravard.

Tomorrow is the big one.

Stage Results
1. Samuel Dumoulin
2. Johnny Hoogerland
3. Marco Marcato

General Classification
1. Johnny Hoogerland
2. Anthony Ravard -1
3. Marco Marcato -8
4. Pierrick Fedrigo -10
5. Cyril Gautier -13
6. Maxime Bouet -13
7. Steven Tronet -13
8. Arthur Vichot -13
9. Jerome Coppel -13
10. Yauheni Hutarovich -18

Points
Anthony Ravard

KOM
Bram Schmitz

Team
Vacansoleil-DCM