Stage 3

The road

At the start

Cavendish in pink, and a run to the sea

Mark Cavendish has taken the maglia rosa off his own team leader on bonus seconds, and HTC-Highroad still hold the first five places overall. Petacchi sits sixth at sixteen seconds with the points jersey. Today the race leaves the flat for the first time: 174 kilometres to Rapallo over the Passo del Bocco, then a twisting drop to the Ligurian coast and a finish full of ramps and tight corners.

How it was won

1. 1143 km to go

   Four go up the road

   De Clercq, Brambilla, Brutt and Ricci Bitti get away thirty-two kilometres into a rolling day to Rapallo and take nearly six minutes before the bunch decides it has seen enough.

2. 240 km to go

   Passo del Bocco

   Brambilla sprints Brutt for the mountain points and takes the jersey, but the field is only a minute back with Lampre lifting the pace to shed the sprinters before the twisting run down to the coast.

3. 320 km to go

   The descent of the Bocco

   On the fast, narrow drop toward the sea, Wouter Weylandt goes down. The cameras find him motionless on the road. The doctors work on him for twenty minutes before the helicopter takes him away, and the race carries on down the mountain not yet knowing what has happened behind it.

4. 49 km to go

   Madonna delle Grazie

   Le Mevel and Lastras take the points over the last climb and Moreno and Vicioso join them on the descent. David Millar throws himself across the gap with two kilometres left, and five men have the stage between them.

5. 5At the line

   Rapallo

   Millar opens the sprint and Angel Vicioso takes it comfortably, a first Grand Tour stage win, and Millar rides into the maglia rosa. Twenty-one seconds later the bunch arrives, and shortly after that the race is told that Weylandt has died.

The result