Peter Sagan danced his way to his second Tour de France win in stage 3 to Boulogne-sur-Mer. The Slovakian champion and green jersey holder unleashed his powerful acceleration in the final hundred meters, distancing Edvald Boasson Hagen (Sky), who held on for second over Peter Velits of Omega Pharma-QuickStep. A fourth place finish was enough for RadioShack-Nissan's Fabian Cancellara to hold on to his overall lead.

The final climb saw a large group going up for the win in a difficult situation. Oscar Freire of Katusha was squeezed in the dash for the line by a Vacansoleil rider, and set off a crash. It was mostly contained on one side of the road, holding up a number of riders already out of contention for the stage, but all were given the same time as the main bunch. Held up was Denis Menchov (Katusha), Bradley Wiggins and his Sky Procycling teammate Chris Froome. The latter toppled into the barriers but emerged unscathed.

The day was marked by climbs and crashes in the last half of the day. Garmin-Sharp suffered the worst luck of the bunch, although Ryder Hesjedal overcame a late-race puncture to regain the front group and ultimately finish the stage in 12th, the rest of the team's climbers - Dan Martin, Christian Vande Velde and Tom Danielson, in addition to sprinter Tyler Farrar, were held up by a large crash in the final 20km and never regained the front of the race.

Team Sky lost one important helper in Kanstantsin Siutsou, who abandoned after a crash, as did Movistar's sprinter JJ Rojas.

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Photo credit © Roberto Bettini