In what was great weather to go skiing in central France on Wednesday, the Paris-Nice bicycle stage doggedly pushed on despite frigid temperatures and snowy roads that forced organizers to shorten a stage for the second straight day. With snow piled four-feet deep alongside the road, race organizers had no choice but to cut the stage from 174km to 118km and eliminate the highest, snow-covered reaches of the course. Despite an early breakaway that included Floyd Landis (Phonak) and defending champion Jörg Jaksche (Liberty Seguros), the sprinters once again drove it home. Vicente Reynes (Illes Balears) took advantage of the slightly rising finish and the unorganized peloton to pip the favorites and move into third overall at four seconds back. “I almost fell in the last part of the stage when I touched Jens Voigt. I really like this sort of sprint going uphill. It suits me well and everything went perfectly today,” said the Spaniard who broke down into tears after scoring his second career victory. A livid Fred Rodriguez (Davitamon-Lotto) pounded his right fist on his handlebars after coming through third on the right side of the sprint while Italian-American Guido Trenti (Quick Step) took second. “After the end of (Vinokourov's) attack I saw Voigt was up at the front, so I took his wheel,” Reynes continued. “I didn't know what the finish was like but when I saw it was on a slight incline I said to myself it was worth attacking. So I really went for it with around 300 meters to go.” Prologue-winner Jens Voigt (CSC) started an early sprint and race leader Tom Boonen (Quick Step) got blocked in on the narrow approach to open the window of opportunity for Reynes. “I was with Guido (Trenti) but Voigt went over to the left and I couldn’t get through,” said Boonen, a winner of the opening two stages. “I was feeling good, it was an easy stage but I just couldn’t contend in the sprint.” Boonen came through seventh, but retained the leader’s jersey some three seconds ahead of Erik Dekker (Rabobank). Early break in short track
Riders lined up in Thiers dressed in full winter gear, but a few hard-nosed Belgians actually raced in shorts in the finest “real men” tradition. Race organizers moved the finish line to Craponne-sur-Arzon deep in the snowy heart of the Massif Central to avoid the worse conditions at higher elevations. Some chilled 163 riders started the stage and things didn’t take long to heat up. David Moncoutié (Cofidis) led the charge over the Cat. 2 Côte de Courpière and took the mountain points to move into the KOM jersey. On the descent, Landis (Phonak), Yaroslav Popovych (Discovery Channel) and Nicki Sorensen (CSC) followed the wheel. Defending champion Jorg Jaksche (Liberty Seguros) bridged out on the Côte de Lavel and formed a group of 11 riders who pulled clear and built up a 30-second lead at just over 30km into the race. The lead expanded to 50 seconds with 25km to go when Landis dropped off the pace as Team CSC and Quick Step collaborated to start the chase in earnest. Dave Zabriskie and Kurt-Asle Arvesen took pulls for CSC and Michael Rogers and Rik Verbrugghe for Quick Step to end the adventure with about 12km to go. “I had good sensations on the climb and I tried to escape after some attempts by Voigt,” Jaksche said. “It was hard to think about trying to arrive to the finish because there were a lot of flat roads. They caught us, even though we tried again with the team.” It turned frenetic in the final kilometers with a string of animated attacks. Liberty then tried to send Luis León Sanchez, Alberto Contador and Jaksche on the march with 7km to go, but Alexandre Vinokourov (T-Mobile) and CSC were quick to snuff the move. León Sanchez had another go with Cadel Evans (Davitamon-Lotto) following the wheel with 6km to go. Egoi Martinez (Euskaltel) inched away with 4.5km to go with Sylvain Chavanel (Cofidis) chasing hard, forcing the peloton to grit its collective teeth trying to keep track of the late sorties. Armstrong taking no risks
Armstrong once again played it safe, coming through 99th with the main bunch. Dressed in full winter gear, including a Discovery Channel vest, the six-time Tour champion wasn’t going to take any unnecessary risks on the wet, potentially icy roads and stayed safely tucked near the back of the bunch during most of the day. Leon Von Bon (Davitamon-Lotto) and Ronny Scholz (Gerolsteiner) didn’t finish and Rony Martias (Bouygues) didn’t start. More changes are expected for Thursday’s fourth stage. It’s scheduled to start in what was supposed to be Wednesday’s finish in Le Chambon sur Ligne, but with more cold temperatures and snow in store, officials are sure to make changes once again. The course does push south toward Montélimar and into the Rhone Valley where mild temperatures await the frosty peloton. The “Race to the Sun” will finally get a reprieve in the coming days. It was a roasty 15-degrees Celsius in Nice on Wednesday. After four days of frigid temperatures, that’s a downright balmy.