Sebastien Hinault of France won the 10th stage of the Spanish Vuelta on Tuesday, while Egoi Martinez of Spain held on to the overall lead.
Hinault won a sprint finish ahead of France’s Lloyd Mondory of AG2R La Mondiale and Belgium’s Greg van Avermat of Silence-Lotto.
The Credit Agricole rider won the 151.3km leg in 3 hours, 22 minutes, 21 seconds.
PHOTO: AFP
Martinez, who rides for Euskaltel-Euskadi, finished 32nd in the same time to keep his 11-second lead over US rider Levi Leipheimer.
Martinez’s overall time is 36:46:17 — 32 seconds faster than Giro d’Italia champion Alberto Contador of Spain, who is third behind Astana teammate Leipheimer.
Yesterday, the field had a 178km ride from Calahorra to Burgos.
The Vuelta, the cycling season’s third major tour after the Tour de France and Giro, finishes in Madrid on Sept. 21.
■TOUR OF BRITAIN
France’s Emilien Berges won the third stage of the Tour of Britain on Tuesday, a victory which saw him take the overall leader’s yellow jersey from Alessandro Petacchi.
But Berges, who crossed the line just ahead of his Agritubel teammate Geoffroy Lequarte, was under no illusions about the task in front of him as the race headed into the English Midlands.
“It was a really good day — I went off well and I was able to work well with my teammate [Lequarte],” the 25-year-old said.
“Originally my plan was to lead out for the sprint and to help him get to the front but when I got up to the front the others just seemed to let me go,” Berges said.
“Time trialling is my specialty, so once I was out in front I knew I had a good chance and once I saw that there were no motorbikes behind me I knew I’d done it and I just enjoyed the ride home,” he said. “But the hard work starts now — it’s hard getting up there but it is even harder to stay out at the front.”
■TOUR OF MISSOURI
While Mark Cavendish sprinted to his second consecutive win at the Tour of Missouri on Tuesday, the British rider’s continued dominance was overshadowed by the confirmation of Lance Armstrong’s return to cycling.
Cavendish, who won four stages of the Tour de France in July, claimed his 16th stage win this season with about a bike-length victory in the 203km Clinton to Springfield road race in 4 hours, 53 minutes, 19 seconds.
Eric Baumann of Germany finished second and Francesco Chicchi of Italy was third for the second straight day, both in the same time as the winner.
Cavendish, who also won three stages of the recent Tour of Ireland, holds a 12-second margin over Chicchi with five stages in the weeklong race remaining.
“It’s not actually about me winning a lot, it’s the fear of losing,” Cavendish said. “On the odd occasion when I don’t feel so good, you know the team has still worked it’s hardest, so the rush of winning is a lot less than the regret of not.”
Steve Hegg, a track gold medalist in 1984, was nearing the end of his career when Armstrong was new to the sport and joined Hegg as a teammate on Subaru-Montgomery in the early 1990s.
“Michael Jordan made a comeback, didn’t he?” said Hegg, who works with Medalist Sports, organizers of the Tour of Missouri.
“You know what? Now he’s coming back to his people. Look at this sport, eventually everyone somehow gets sucked back into it,” Hegg said.
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