Tour de France: Gerrans holds off Sagan for stage win

Overall race leader Jan Bakelants grabs a snack during a sweltering third stage yesterday. Picture: Getty

Gerrans looked to have the finish line to himself with about 100 metres to go, but Sagan launched a late sprint and almost caught him before Gerrans dug deep to clinch his second career Tour stage win. Spaniard Jose Joaquin Rojas finished third.

“Sagan is a guy who can often climb with the best climbers and sprint with the best sprinter so I’m really thrilled to be able to beat such a classy rider,” Gerrans said. “This is a stage that I’ve been targeting for quite some time. We were down here in Corsica last weekend doing a recon and scouting the finishes and it all paid off today.”

Although Gerrans has clinched a stage win on all three Grand Tours, his only previous Tour stage win was five years ago – when it actually finished in the northern Italian ski resort of Prato Nevoso.

He was slowing up but just managed one last effort to throw his bike forward the way a 100m runner would dip for the line. “I wasn’t sure if I had won – a half-wheel length,” Gerrans said. “All went perfectly well, my team took great care of me after the last climb.”

He will especially need to thank his countryman and team-mate Simon Clarke, who was in the early breakaway. “It was the team plan. I was brought to the Tour de France to join breakaways, so I made sure I did my job,” Clarke said. “I was quite relaxed today and when you’re relaxed it means you have good legs.” It was a particularly welcome win for Gerrans’ Orica Greenedge team after the confusion of Saturday’s first stage, when the team grabbed the attention of the world’s media when its bus was stuck on the finish line and was removed only moments before the riders arrived.

“We saw the footage,” Gerrans said. “You really can’t do (anything) but laugh at the situation. (Our driver) did a fantastic job. He was embarrassed so we felt quite sad for him.”

Sagan is in the coveted sprinter’s green jersey he is expected to contest with British sprinter Mark Cavendish -– who is already 49 points behind.

“I’m a bit sad about the stage, but the team’s objective is to get the green jersey and that’s what we have,” Sagan, a Slovak, said through a translator. “I don’t feel at my best yet. But the Tour is long and there are still a lot of good stages to come.”

Bakelants, the winner of Sunday’s second stage, finished in 19th place.

“The team worked very hard for me, and I’m very happy to keep the yellow jersey,” Bakelants said. “It was a very hot day and the conditions were not easy.”

Yesterday’s 145.5-km (90 mile) leg started from Ajaccio, where French emperor and military mastermind Napoleon Bonaparte was born in 1769, and finished in Calvi after three moderate climbs and a steeper last climb tested the legs of the peloton. Gerrans clocked about three hours, 40 minutes.

It was the last of the trio of Corsican stages before the race heads to mainland France for today’s team time trial in Nice, where race favourite Chris Froome’s Sky team are expected to challenge for the win.