CYCLING/ Tour de France: Waterloo, according to Victor Hugo, was a "depressing plain". Waterloo was merely the start yesterday and Iban Mayo's thoughts at the finish here were probably not repeatable. The little Spanish climber was considered a strong outside chance for victory in this Tour but will now need a miracle in the mountains to win.
"My Tour has been finished by bad luck," he said yesterday, after a crash amid the cobbles of the Valenciennes coalfield cost him almost four minutes.
"I've worked a year preparing for this race, and it will be very difficult even to make the first three now. The gap is too big."
Only two of the cobbled sections of the Paris-Roubaix "Hell of the North" one-day classic figured yesterday, totalling a mere two of the 130 miles, but they were enough to consign Mayo to perdition together with last year's best young rider Denis Menchov and last year's best-placed Frenchman Christophe Moreau.
The man who started the stage in yellow, Thor Hushovd, was another victim, and the race lead passed to Robbie McEwen of Australia thanks to the time bonus he received for taking third to France's Jean-Patrick Nazon in a finishing sprint contested by the 90 who had stayed out of trouble.
The lead is bound to change again today in the team time-trial. If Lance Armstrong's US Post men repeat their victory of last year, that will be enough to put the Texan in the maillot jaune, just reward for a strong start to the Tour, and some devastating riding by his team yesterday.
The first lane of shiny blue cobbles wandered through chicory and corn fields between the back streets of the red-brick mining villages of Erre and Wandignies-Hamage, a mere lump of coal's throw from the mines where Emile Zola based the novel Germinal.
It was all very bucolic, apart from a large power station on the horizon, but Mayo's luck had run out even before he reached the vast sculpture of a black cat in Erre's main square.
What did for him was the battle to be in the front rank going into the cobbled lane. As in the Grand National so with cobbles: those at the front avoid trouble. Through the little villages and lanes leading to Erre, each overall contender and several domestiques were fighting for the first 20 places, surging to the front and holding their position for a few seconds before another group whizzed past.
As the crescendo of speed - "15 miles at 40 m.p.h." according to McEwen - reached its peak, just before the village itself, Mayo and seven other riders tangled. One, the Italian Marco Velo, was left lying in the ditch, blood soaking through his white jersey from a punctured artery in his shoulder, while Mayo had his shorts ripped and a nasty gash in his left thigh.
"The rider next to me touched my handlebars; there was no way out," he said.
In normal circumstances, he would have got up and rejoined the peloton, but Armstrong et al were concerned only with getting down the mile and a quarter of cobbled lane as fast as possible.
As the Texan's domestiques Viatcheslav Ekimov and George Hincapie led at 40 m.p.h., the string behind them stretched and snapped and Mayo and the team-mates who had waited for him could only catch the backmarkers.
Armstrong, Tyler Hamilton and Jan Ullrich decided the opportunity to eliminate at least one dangerous rival was too good to miss, and their teams united: the Texan's blue-clad US Postal, the New Englander's green and white Phonaks, and the pink of Ullrich's Telekom.
They produced a massive injection of speed in the run-in to the second cobbled section at Gruson, with 15 miles remaining. By then Mayo and his team were looking distinctly gruesome, despite support from Moreau, Hushovd's Credit Agricoles, and Menchov's Islas Baleares.
The cobbles have not figured in the Tour for 20 years, mainly because they can put the lighter men, climbers such as Mayo, at such a disadvantage. There will be debate about their return, but no one will argue that Armstrong and company should have waited for the tousle-haired Basque.
"The others have done nothing wrong," said Mayo. "If it had been Armstrong in my position I would have done the same."
The mountains cannot come soon enough for him but they are a week away. Today the Basque and his Euskaltel team face the team time-trial. Squads like this, where lightweight climbers predominate, find it daunting to produce continuous high speed on the flat even when fresh, let alone after a similar effort of close on 40 miles.
Euskaltel are also a man down after Gorka Gonzalez was decreed to have unhealthily thick blood and was ejected before the start.
So it is probably a mercy that Tour organisers have decreed a team's losses today cannot exceed three minutes.
To complete the prospect of a perfect day out among the first World War battlefields, wind and rain are forecast.
Guardian Service
Tour de FranceStage Three
TOUR DE FRANCE STAGE 3 (from Waterloo to Wasquehal): 1. JP Nazon (France) AG2R 4.36:45 2. E Zabel (Germany) T-Mobile 3. R McEwen (Australia) Lotto-Domo 4. T Boonen (Belgium) Quick Step-Davitamon 5. K Kirchen (Luxembourg) Fassa Bortolo 6. D Hondo (Germany) Gerolsteiner 7. J Kirsipuu (Estonia) AG2R 8. A Bertolini (Italy) Alessio-Bianchi 9. F Baldato (Italy) Alessio-Bianchi 10. JE Gutierrez (Spain) Phonak, all same time. 75 - Mark Scanlon (Irl) AG2R at 5 secs.
Leading overall standings (yellow jersey): 1. McEwen 13.42:34 2. Cancellara 1 second behind 3. Voigt 9 4. Nazon 12 5. L Armstrong (U.S.) US Postal 16 6. Hondo 22 7. Zabel 23 8. JE Gutierrez same time 9. Leipheimer 24 10. O Pereiro (Spain) Phonak 25. 28 Mark Scanlon (Irl) A2R at 36 secs.
King of the mountains standings (polka-dot jersey): 1. P Bettini (Italy) Quick Step-Davitamon 19 points 2. J Tombak (Estonia) Confidis 14 3. Voigt 9 4. Bram de Groot (Netherlands) Rabobank 7 5. J Pineau (France) Brioches La Boulangere 3.
Leading overall points standings (green jersey): 1. McEwen 93 2. Nazon 85 3. Kirsipuu 74 4. Hondo 74 5. T Hushovd (Norway) Credit Agricole 70. 51 Scanlon (Irl) A2R 6 pts
Leading team standings: 1. US Postal 41.08:56 2. Fassa Bortolo 4 seconds behind 3. Team CSC 6 4. Phonak same time 5. Rabobank 21 6. T-Mobile 25 7. Liberty Seguros 29 8. Fdjeux.Com 31 9. Gerolsteiner 32 10. AG2R 35.
Leading young rider (under-25) standings (white jersey): 1. Cancellara 13.42:35 2. Boonen 27 3. Scarponi 32 4. Pineau 34 5. Scanlon (Irl) AG2R 35
