The Tour de Georgia keeps on delivering surprises. A youth movement attack of 13 cyclists tore apart the peloton with a nearly 30-minute plus breakaway that essentially ended the General Classification aspirations for all the favorites.
Discovery Channel's Gianni Meersman, left, of Belgium — the youngest cyclist in the race — won the 118-mile Stage 3 between Rome and Chattanooga. Second-place finisher David Canada Gracia (Spain) of Saunier Duval took over the overall race leader's yellow jersey.
While it seems that the favorites — Tyler Hamilton, Levi Leipheimer, Tom Danielson, Dave Zabriskie, Fred Rodriguez, and the list goes on — have been unable to make an impact on the race in the first two stages, their absence in Stage 3 is confounding. They group finished about 29 minutes behind the breakaway.
Interviewed on Tour Tracker after the race, Meersman said his victory and the big break on Wednesday has set up the day's third-place finisher and Discovery teammate — Janez Brajkovic of Slovenia — for a good chance to take the overall win when the race finishes Sunday.
Another breakaway member, US's Jeffrey Louder of Health Net, led the race at critical times and took the Mountains Jersey. The stage featured two Category 3 and two Category 4 climbs. Health Net's Timothy Johnson won the most aggressive rider of the day.
Elsewhere
Check out the final results at CyclingNews or VeloNews.
Also, in the Stage 3 Story, the writer at the Toyota-United blog explains why the team didn't help Predictor-Lotto chase down the breakaway. Neither team had a rider in the front group.
Nathan O'Neill of Health Net pro cycling gives his explanation for the huge time gap in an interview at Daily Peloton; basically, Predictor-Lotto chased too hard and no one could join them.
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