The ride started with a few attacks, which were unsuccessful. But a four person breakaway occurred, with some strong riders. The highest positioned rider in the break was David Millar of Garmin-Slipstream. Millar began the stage only 1’07” behind the yellow jersey.

There was no solid organization behind the chase. Astana, Columbia, Rabobank, and other teams were taking turns at the front of the peleton. This allowed the gap to the leaders to seesaw between one and three minutes.

With about 20k to go, Millar attacked his companions to try to win the stage. He managed to stretch the gap out to 1’10”. Once it hit that time though, the peleton turned on the gas. They did not want Millar to get the yellow jersey, and the sprinters’ teams also wanted to give their men a chance to win the stage.

As an extremely strong time trialist, Miller was able to hold off the peleton until just over 1k to go, when the sprinters’ teams were just too strong. The peleton passed him and brought the sprinters to the front. With a few hundred meters to go, Oscar Freire of Rabobank attacked, but Cervelo Test Team’s Thor Hushovd was able to pass him with just a few meters left to take the stage win.

1. tdfblog.com: Tour de France 2008
   tdfblog.com
2. Wikipedia: Tour de France Page
   en.wikipedia.org
3. ESPN: Cycling News
   sports.espn.go.com
4. Course Map
   letour.fr
5. Official Site: Le Tour de France
   letour.fr
6. Bicycling Magazine: Tour de France 2008
   bicycling.com
7. Yahoo! Sports: Cycling on Yahoo!
   sports.yahoo.com

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In a bit of gamesmanship, Astana team director Johann Bruyneel picked Lance Armstrong and Levi Leipheimer to start early, due to worries about rain that was expected later in the day and could slow their times.

Lance did not disappoint, setting the fastest time of the day up until that point. That time did not last, however, as Tony Martin of Team Columbia bested him by a mere 7 seconds.

The day kept speeding up, as the top time got bested again and again. Top GC contenders Levi Leipheimer, Cadel Evans and Andreas Kloden all finished within half a minute of the final winner.

The big drama of the day was how 2007 Tour winner Alberto Contador would finish. Stories have been flying for months about whether Contador or Armstrong would lead the Astana team, but as Armstrong said recently, "the race will sort it out." And it did--Contador set the fastest time at that point, 22 seconds faster than Armstrong.

But in the end, it was time trial specialist and former world time trial champion Fabian Cancellara of team Saxo Bank earning the win, 18 seconds ahead of Contador.

Other GC contenders did not fare as well. This year's Giro d'Italia winner Denis Menchov finished 1:31 back, and last year's temporary yellow jersey holder Frank Schleck has a very bad day, 1:36 back and 1:18 behind Contador. 2008 Tour winner Carlos Sastre, not a time trial specialist, finished 1:06 back.

Beginning again in Monaco and continuing into France and finally finishing 187 km later in Brignoles. The course was fairly flat, with some rolling 3rd and 4th category climbs and some intermediate sprints throughout. An early breakaway extended about 5 minutes out, until Saxo Bank held the leash and stopped the breakaway from gaining any more time.

A small bit of trivia: Jussi Veikkanen of the Francais de Jeux team summitted all three mountains first, becoming the first rider from Finland to earn the King of the Mountains jersey.

Saxo Bank's Frank Schleck suffered a minor crash not far into the stage, but was able to bring himself back to the peleton without too much work.

With about 20 km to go, the breakaway was caught, leaving the sprinters' teams to do the work. Columbia-HTC took control with about 15k remaining to try to lead their sprinter Mark Cavendish to victory.

After a crash disrupted some of the action with only 1 or 2k remaining, Columbia and Cavendish stayed on the front, and though Garmin-Slipstream's Tyler Farrar got on Cav's wheel, he was not able to catch the Columbia sprinter, as Cav took his first Tour victory of the year.

Armstrong and the other GC contenders, as well as Cancellara finished in a large group. They all kept their same time, with Cancellara keeping his yellow jersey.

The only possible kink in those plans is a strong crosswind in the roads down near La Grande Motte. In a crosswind, all bets are off and major time gaps can open.

The race started with an attack right when the flag dropped. The breakaway of four riders made it to a 12:30 gap before the peleton began reeling them in.

Over the final (category 4) mountain, the time gap had dropped quite a bit, down to 7 minutes.

With the breakaway only a minute or so ahead, all of a sudden, the exact thing that team directors warned about happened: the crosswind!

There was a slight crosswind at just over 20 km left, and Team Columbia-HTC drilled it. It was pedal to the metal and the race completely split into two groups. Columbia-HTC had all 8 riders in the front, and other teams just had one or two riders. In yellow, Fabian Cancellara was there, and Lance Armstrong was there, but none of the other major GC contenders were. Alberto Contador was left behind. So was Sastre, Evans, Menchov, Leipheimer, Vande Velde, and others.

At 5km left, the time gap had gone up to 35 seconds, putting Lance Armstrong into third in the virtual standings. And it was becoming clear that the leading group wasn't going to be pulled back.

With 1km left, sprint attacks started, and it looked like Mark Cavendish was in trouble. But he was patient, and found his leadout man, Mark Renshaw. Renshaw brought Cav to 250m to the line, and Cav catapulted himself to the finish for the victory.

Right near the beginning of the stage, Lance turned out to be correct. The third team to start was Rabobank with leader Denis Menchov. In one of the first turns on the course, Menchov had a nasty crash which slowed the team down for the rest of the TTT, with Rabobank already losing 57 seconds to Katusha, with 17 teams yet to finish.

The team with perhaps the most disastrous ride was BBox. After one rider suffered a rear flat, and later another rider suffering a crash, half of the team went down in a crash off the road.

Katusha set the early fastest time. That time held for the next 12 teams, until Liquigas blew up the course and finished 25 seconds ahead. But the top 4 leading teams had yet to put in their time—Columbia HTC, Garmin-Slipstream, Saxobank, and obviously Astana are the big guns.

Garmin set a solid time at the first checkpoint—only 7 seconds behind the leaders. But the team disintegrated, quickly losing four riders, and they were only down to five: Vande Velde, Zabriskie, Wiggins, Millar, and Hesjedal. And at the second time check, they were able to set the fastest time with only those five people!

Sparks were flying, as Garmin kept heating up and finally set the fastest time on the course, still with only five riders. Saxobank had a disappointing run, although Cancellara dragged his team across the finish line 22 seconds behind Garmin.

The last team to finish would be Astana. At the second time check, Lance Armstrong was only one second out of yellow. At the third check, he was one second AHEAD of the yellow jersey. It was clear it would all come down to the finish.

With 1k to go, Astana was drilling it, with 1:15 remaining before Lance would be out of yellow again. They finished the last kilometer in…1:15! He started the race 40 seconds behind Cancellara, and finished 40 seconds ahead of Cancellara.

After calculating the time down to the hundredths of a second, Cancellara came out ahead, only a few hundredths of a second ahead of Armstrong.

When the stage began, a quick attack made its way out of the field, with six riders leading the race. Nobody in the group was a GC contender, but it was notable because Thomas Voeckler of Bbox Bouygues Telecom was in the breakaway. Many Tour de France fans will remember Voeckler’s name from his herculean efforts during the 2004 tour, when he obtained the maillot jaune in a breakaway, and did not surrender the jersey until 10 days later, when Lance Armstrong won stage 15 in the Alps. Because of this history, the peleton was not willing to let the breakaway lead by much time.

And all of a sudden, we started to see a repeat of stage 3. A strong wind picked up, and teams at the front of the peleton put the hammer down and started pounding the pedals. This effort quickly splintered the field, and the peleton opened up a gap of a minute over the chasing groups. Eventually some of the chasers made it back, but not all.

With 10k to go, the wily breakaway, led by Tour veteran Voeckler was still over a minute ahead of the chasing peleton. Team Columbia-HTC was keeping the pressure on at the front of the peleton, but it was going to be a difficult task to drag the group up in only 10k.

With 5k to go, it started to become clear that the breakaway was going to succeed, and the attacks in the breakaway started. At 4k, Voeckler attacked, and created a gap of 10 seconds ahead of the breakaway. At 3k, Albert Timmer of the wild card Skil-Shimano team started chasing him. With 1k to go, Voeckler had a 10 second gap over Timmer. At 500 meters, Voeckler was looking over his shoulder again and again, until he realized that he was going to win. The peleton chased hard, but couldn’t catch. Voeckler ended up winning the stage by a few seconds, with Mark Cavendish beating the rest of the sprinters to come in at third place to add to his green jersey lead. All of the main GC contenders ended up with the same time, with no change in the standings.