Stage 3

The road

At the start

Evans in pink, the sea on the right

The world champion is in the maglia rosa after yesterday's carnage, one second up on Tyler Farrar and three on Vinokourov and Richie Porte. Martin Kohler has gone home, the first man out of the race. Today runs 224 kilometres from Amsterdam to Middelburg on roads that shadow the North Sea, and there is wind forecast: the kind of day a Giro can be lost by a rider who is simply in the wrong twenty.

How it was won

1. 170 km to go

   Three groups on the North Sea road

   The road to Middelburg runs parallel to the sea and the crosswind does the rest. With seventy kilometres left the race is in three distinct pieces, and every man with a classification is fighting to be in the right one.

2. 250 km to go

   Cunego on the wrong side

   The 2004 champion is more than a minute adrift with fifty kilometres to go. HTC-Columbia and Sky, chasing for their own sprinters, drag him back, Wiggins doing much of it out of pink and back in black.

3. 330 km to go

   Vande Velde's Giro ends

   Another crash thirty kilometres out and Christian Vande Velde is sitting on the tarmac holding his collarbone. Garmin, already thin, lose their road captain for good.

4. 4At the line

   Weylandt wins, Evans loses pink

   A crash inside the last ten kilometres splits the front again, and Cadel Evans spends the final four on the front of the second group chasing in the rainbow jersey. It is not enough: Wouter Weylandt wins in Middelburg and the world champion crosses 45 seconds down.

The result