Paris-Nice: Frantic Finish for Henderson

Greg Henderson took advantage of what may be the only (or at least for a while) sprint opportunity of Paris-Nice with a fast sprint ending to another crazy stage.

Crashes were the story of the afternoon, with riders like Frank Schleck and Levi Leipheimer going down due to the killer crosswinds (thought we were supposed to be done with those after Qatar...) and the quick pace of the peloton.

Not that there wasn't enough to fill up the "strange and wacky" category as well...

Perhaps the most unfortunate crash of the day was Lucas Sebastian Haedo. Haedo was forced to abandon the race after colliding with a official motorbike and getting mangled in the crash.

After the field seemed clear of most of the chaos, things got even stranger when the breakaway (Maxime Bouet and Tony Gallopin) encountered a closed railway crossing and were forced to stop. The race officials stepped in and blocked off the road for 45 seconds and allowed the breakaway to get back in front of the peloton (which had caught up to the stationary riders).

This temporarily threw off the sprint teams, but they weren't going to let another one get away. HTC took up the pace-making for a while and eventually the catch was made.

Astana tried to replicate yesterday's attacking success when they launched Vino with a teammate, but HTC (who is riding for Martin and Van Garderen in the GC) quickly organized and chased them down.

Then the yellow jersey attacked! De Gendt tried to catch the sprint teams off guard when he darted up the right side of the road, but HTC again had him marked. In retrospect it probably wasn't the best time to attack considering the fact that the riders up front were already giving suicide turns and were willing to go all-out to immediately mark him.

HTC and Liquigas seemed to have the best position up front when all of a sudden Geraint Thomas appeared out of nowhere. G darted through the middle of the pack and then left his buddy Henderson in perfect position for the finishing sprint. Henderson even said after the race that he owes a lot of the credit today to Thomas.

Henderson opened up and Goss swung wide left, but all of a sudden Goss decided to dart back inside to another line.

Did Henderson block him?

Well, he was creeping into his line a bit but I wouldn't say it was an all-out block. There wasn't really much said about it after the race, but you can tell something went wrong when a sprinter just decides to dart into a new line.

Russian Denis Galimzyanov finished 3rd, with Haussler 4th and Peter Sagan rounding out the top 5.

Stage Results

1. Greg Henderson

2. Matt Goss
3. Denis Galimzyanov

General Classification

1. Thomas De Gendt

2. Greg Henderson -4

3. Jeremy Roy -7

4. Matt Goss -8

5. Tony Gallopin

6. Heinrich Haussler -10

7. Denis Galimzyanov

8. Jens Voigt -12

9. Romain Feillu -13

10. Peter Sagan -14

24. Sylvain Chavanel

25. Roman Kreuzinger

30. Nicolas Roche

39. Jurgen Van Den Broeck

41. Tony Martin

48. Richie Porte

67. Jani Brajkovic

73. Tejay Van Garderen

74. Ryder Hesjedal

81. Samuel Sanchez

83. Bradley Wiggins

96. Michael Rogers

98. Luis Leon Sanchez

99. Andrew Talansky

105. Alexandre Vinokourov

123. Levi Leipheimer

145. Jakob Fuglsang -1:15

Points

Greg Henderson- 41

KOM

Damien Gaudin- 4

Teams

Vacansoleil-DCM

Stage 3

I'm not saying that a sprint is impossible, but highly improbable. Greg Henderson says he plans to have the GC lead after tomorrow, but he's going to have to get over that last cat 2 climb that is awfully late in the stage.

I wouldn't expect the big boys to come out to play yet, but that last climb suits a stage hunter rider quite well.

I'd keep an eye out for a guy like Sylvain Chavanel or Ryder Hesjedal tomorrow.