Christian Vande Velde crashes out at Giro d'Italia

While the Stage 2 victory of Tyler Farrar brought joy to the Garmin-Transitions pro cycling team at the Giro d'Italia on Sunday, Christian Vande Velde's crash and abandonment in Stage 3 on Monday must have brought sorrow.

It's the second year in a row that the 33-year-old US rider and team captain for Garmin has crashed out of the Giro in Stage 3. Last year, he broke five vertebrae, a rib and his pelvis.

Although there's no official confirmation yet, it appeared that Vande Velde broke or seriously injured his right collarbone when he crashed about 25 miles from the finish in Middelburg, Holland.

Crash

Vande Velde went down with a cyclist from Liquigas and two from Caisse d'Epargne. He was shown sitting in the middle of the road for a few seconds, then he got up and walked to the side of the road as he held his right shoulder.

Vande Velde also crashed on Sunday, along with Farrar. They both recovered and Farrar was able to win the final sprint for the stage win.

While the Giro has been hard on the cyclist from northern Illinois the past couple of years, the 2008 Giro can be called his coming out party. He took the overall lead for several days that year after his team (same team but then called Slipstream-Chipotle) won the team time trial. 

Although he had raced successfully for many years, Vande Velde became the first American in 2008 to wear the overall leader's maglia rosa since Andy Hampsten in 1988.

We can only hope that he can recover as quickly as he did last year, when in spite of his injuries, he was able to compete in the Tour de France where he finished in 8th place overall.

Vino leads

In other Giro news, Australian Cadel Evans of BMC Racing (another US-based team) lost time after getting delayed behind a different crash and lost his overall lead to Alexandre Vinokourov of Team Astana. Vino returned to racing late last year after serving a two-year suspension for doping.

In the final sprint into Middelburg, the HTC Columbia team (yet another US-based team) formed a textbook lead-out train for Andre Greipel. However, Greipel faded in the sprint and Belgium's Wouter Weylandt of QuickStep won the race.

The peloton has a rest day on Tuesday as it moves operations to Italian soil for the rest of the Giro, which begins again on Wednesday.

Top 10 overall after Stage 3

1 Alexandre Vinokourov (Kaz) Astana

2 Richie Porte (Aus) Team Saxo Bank    

3 David Millar (GBr) Garmin – Transitions 1 second behind

4 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Liquigas-Doimo 5 seconds behind

5 Marcel Sieberg (Ger) Team HTC – Columbia 7 seconds behind

6 Matthew Harley Goss (Aus) Team HTC – Columbia

10 seconds behind

7 André Greipel (Ger) Team HTC – Columbia    

8 Linus Gerdemann (Ger) Team Milram 12 seconds behind

9 Stefano Garzelli (Ita) Acqua & Sapone 15 seconds behind

10 Pieter Weening (Ned) Rabobank 16 seconds behind

More results and race update at CyclingNews. Broadcast information at Universal Sports.