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Tour de France - *Saint-Malo - Nantes

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  1. 16:49 - But today belongs to the French, as Samuel Dumoulin of Cofidis claims a stunning break-away victory and Romain Feillu (Agritubel) wins the yellow jersey. This sort of shake-up is just what Tour organisers wanted, and you know what they got it. Thanks for following our LIVE coverage and thanks to all of you who emailed in with questions and comments. Sorry we didn't get to them all, but please join us tomorrow for more LIVE coverage of what is sure to be a thrilling time trail.

  2. 16:43 - Along with the yellow jersey the GC lead goes to Feillu, 35 seconds from Longo, and a 1'42 from FRISCHKORN. Valverde is fourth at 1'45, in front of Kirchen, Freire, Pineau, Millar, Evans and Pozzato. You have to think that either Millar, Evans, Kirchen, Valverde, or even Cancellara (1'53) will be wearing the yellow jersey at the end of tomorrow's time trial with the gap at just 1'45.

  3. 0km - The mass sprint in the peloton goes McEwen, Zabel, Freire, Hushovd, Forster, Cavendish in that order, about two minutes behind the winning bunch. And Menchov leads the front of the third group which is a further 30 seconds off pace.... Kim Kirchen will keep the green jersey, but FEILLU gets the white jersey as well as the yellow jersey.

  4. 0km - AND DUMOULIN TAKES IT!! FEILLU can console himself with the yellow jersey after finishing third in the sprint though, and the American FRISCHKORN is second, boxing out the Frenchman!! LONGO BORGHINI is fourth, and we await the mass sprint for the placings..... What a day for France!!

  5. 0.5km - DUMOULIN is back in front as the two men continue to duke it out in some fashion!!!

  6. 1.5km - FEILLU overtakes DUMOULIN and launches his sprint early!!

  7. 2km - DUMOULIN launches the first attack, but is chased by FRISCHKORN and FEILLU!!

  8. 3km - kerem sefa asks: "what are the chances of feilllu retaining yellow jersey after the time trial tomorrow? if the gap is less than a minute to yellow jersey group?" My answer, not likely as some of the specialists like Millar and Cancellara were very well placed at the start of the day and should take more than enough time out of the Frenchman's hide to take the overall lead.

  9. 6km - Valverde and Caisse D'Epargne trying to take as much time out of his GC rivals Menchov and Ricco as possible now, though we will have a new yellow jersey tonight and he will be French (FEILLU +18') or Italian (BORGHINI +39')

  10. 7km - A nasty spill by one of the Quick Step boys sees him hit the deck at a very high speed. That rider is back up and trying to get back into the peloton before he's swallowed by the Menchov/Ricco group, which is about 35 seconds behind the Valverde group.

  11. 8km - Gap at 3'05....

  12. 10km - Quick Step and Liquigas still trying to do what they can to drive the pace at the front of the peloton. Rabobank, meanwhile, have moved to the front of the second chase group to get their team leader Denis Menchov back with the yellow jersey group. Saunier Duval also doing what they can for Ricco. Ten K left.....

  13. 12km - As we mentioned when this break-away started 193 kilometres ago, France's Romain Feillu is the best placed of the four men in this early break (58th at 18 seconds behind yellow jersey Alejandro Valverde). If they can keep the margin above 18 seconds, then we could have a Frenchman in yellow at the end of the day.

  14. 14km - Emma Davies has changed her opinion and admits that this break-away won't likely be caught. Gap is 3'30.

  15. 15km - Angel GOMEZ Marchante has abandoned this year's Tour de France, we can confirm. Still, no word on what his injury is though.

  16. 16km - Things looking very good for the four leaders now, as Sean Kelly and David Harmon think it's now "virtually impossible" for the peloton to catch the escapees with the gap at four minutes and 16K left to go.

  17. 20km - With 20 kilometres left to ride the gap is down to 4'26.

  18. 22km - The peloton, meanwhile, is broken into bits with Gert Steegman's Quick Step team moving very much to the front of the peloton along with Columbia's George Hincapie. Cadel Evans, and Alejandro Valverder in the group, along with McEwen. Quick Step have really put in a huge injection in pace, as the gap goes down to 4'30. Stuart O'Grady and Oscar Freire are also in the medium-sized yellow jersey group, but Riccardo RICCO is in one of the riders who has been dropped into the chasing groups.

  19. 24km - CRASH!! Danish national champion Nicki SORENSEN has hit the deck along with Angel GOMEZ, and a BOUYGUES TELECOM rider! GOMEZ is still down, and he looks very much like he could be hurt.

  20. 26km - Sean Kelly's prediction if the four men stay away: "Romain FEILLU, from what I know about him he's the best sprinter."

  21. 28km - The four men being aided by the weather, have picked up a tailwind somewhere along the way and were cruising at 60mph at one point!

  22. 30km - Gap below five minutes and 30 seconds now... Longo Borghini (Barloworld) has found his second wind and is really doing his part to keep this break-away, away.... This finish is going to be as close as they come.

  23. 33km - More questions pouring in. This one from Dermot Sugrue in Dublin is about as subjective as it gets: "Quick question: whos better, Kelly or Roche? A constant source of debate in my family i just wanted a second opinion..." My second opinion, as a devoted Eurosport employee, is that both men were equally great! That's all you're going to get from this cowardly blogger, Dermot.

  24. 37km - David Harmon: "I'm going to stick my neck out and say that all four of these men will get to the line before the peloton." Harmon predicts that Samuel DUMOULIN would grab the win in that event. The gap is down to 6'07 and shrinking, but is it shrinking fast enough?

  25. 40km - Emma Davies is on the air making her predictions. She is someone to be listened to, having correctly predicted Thor Hushovd's victory yesterday. She says "This is more of a Mark Cavendish finish" discounting the likes of Gert Steegmans. Emma also saying that Julian Dean is someone to watch out for if this goes to a final sprint.

  26. 42km - The gap still at 6'39 and whether or not the peloton is able to pull back this deficit is going to be a very close call.

  27. 50km - Julian Hawes has written in with this interesting note about CGT: "I seem to remember Bernard Hinault had the same problem years ago with the CGT." The 'Badger' did famously clash with the trade union during the 1984 "Race to the Sun", better known as the Paris-Nice race. There's some great footage of his kafuffle with protesters which you can watch by pasting the following link into your browser: http://www.ina.fr/archivespourtous/index.php?vue=notice&id_notice=CAB89034964

  28. 54km - The peloton is now through safely! The protesters have been moved off of the roads, and cordoned off on the sides. Good work by the police, and maybe the peloton still has a chance to catch the break-away.

  29. 57km - Protests along the Tour route are not a rare occurrence and CGT, or La Confédération générale du travail, is actually the biggest union in France. They are mounting this protest in the pouring rain, as well, which the peloton must now contend with on top of the wind. Word is that it's dry at the finish line in Nantes at least.

  30. 58km - OH DEAR!!! A huge union protest is blocking the route!! Some group called CGT are blocking the road, and being cleared off by police as the four leading riders have somehow managed to break their ways through the mess!! This could be there chance to stay away!! Tour Director Prudhomme is begging the protesters to leave before the peloton hits that patch!

  31. 61km - Liquigas have really picked up the pace at the front of the peloton. We're wondering what the Italian team's motivation is to catch this break-away? The gap has now just dipped under seven minutes.

  32. 68km - 'The Longo Borghini Rocket' is starting to slow down, as the Italian is doing less and less work for the break-away group.

  33. 71km - Gap down to 8'19 as the pace has noticeably accelerated at the front of the peloton.

  34. 80km - Let's take this occasion to remind ourselves who is in the break-away group: William Frischkorn (Garmin Chipotle - H30), Paolo Longo Borghini (Barloworld), Romain Feillu (Agritubel) and Samuel Dumoulin (Cofidis).

  35. 86km - The average race speed after three hours of riding is 38,2 km/h.

  36. 90km - Back to the "real" contest. Through the feed zone the riders go, with the gap hovering at nine minutes.

  37. ----- - PAUL NORRIS WITH A NEAR EXACT GUESS OF 14'45!! Well done Paul and you win the prize just three seconds off of the high gap of 14'48. You can email your mailing details to jstahl@eurosport.com if you want us to send you your prize. And thanks to everyone who participated. We're all Wieners (save for myself, who initially got the real Wiener wrong)!

  38. ----- - Let us forego with the suspense though. The envelope please...... And the winner, of eurosport.yahoo.com's "Guess the stage three gap" contest and the prize of Matt Rendell's "The Death of Marco Pantani: A biography" is....

  39. ----- - Andy Cripps thinks he won, sending us this message: "I think I deserve a prize for guessing exactly when the first substantial drop in the breaks time occurred? (11'45) Maybe a pair of Duffers pink socks!?!" But Andy we were asking the highest gap before it started to drop.

  40. 95km - Now is as good a time as any to announce our "Guess the Gap" contest winner. Out of more than 80 responses ranging from six (Dave Bogg) to 29 (Chris Mather) we had about ten guesses in the 14 minute range.

  41. 100km - The gap is under ten minutes now....

  42. 101km - As Vaughters talks to David Harmon and Sean Kelly, one of his riders Martijn Maaskant suffers a bit of bad luck, in the form of a puncture. The Dutchman, whom the team has nicknamed "Sleepy", is back on his way into the peloton though after a quick wheel change.

  43. 104km - Sporting Director Jonathan Vaughters on his Garmin-Chipotle team's Tour debut: "We're coming in with an open heart and an open mind. Most of them did the Giro, and the Giro was so much harder from a staff standpoint that the Tour is actually easier from that perspective. We started off thinking we were going to be a TdF team by 2009 or 2010 and obviously that's been a bit faster than we expected."

  44. 108km - Another question that neither we nor Duffers could answer. Mike Younger in London wondering "What is the longest time margin over the peloton a breakaway has managed then got caught in TdF history?" As we said, we don't know. As David Duffield notes they did not keep track of such things when the Tour first started 1903 and that would have been the epoch when such a gap occurred, with stages as long as 471 kilometres and riders regularly building gaps bigger than one hour and then losing them. Sorry Mike, but at least you can tell all your friends you stumped David Duffield.

  45. 110km - The gap is down to 11'23" and I think it's safe to declare our winner, which we will be doing shortly!

  46. 115km - The gap hovering at 12 minutes now.....

  47. 120km - The peloton, being led by Caisse d'Epargne, Crédit Agricole and Columbia (formerly High Road), has really upped the pace now, and the gap is down below 13 minutes!! I think that means we have a Weiner in our gap guessing contest, though we will wait a bit longer to officially announce.

  48. 121km - Puncture for Baden Cooke (Barloworld). The Australian is now racing his way back into the main bunch.

  49. 123km - So to answer your question, Mickel, we don't know. We do know this about Paolo Longo Borghini though. Paolo is the son of three time cross country Olympian Guidina Dal Sasso, and his nickname is 'The Longo Borghini Rocket'. Thank you Wikipedia.

  50. 124km - A great question in from Mickel van Gurchom. He asks "Is the Longo in the attack today family with the ladies French champion?" The ladies French champion in question is, of course, 1996 Olympic champion Jeannie Longo. Well, we consulted the king of cycling trivia, David Duffield, for this one, and he didn't know for sure, but said it was "very unlikely" considering that he's Italian, she's French, and there's a 21-year-age gap between the two. "There's no way she would have changed her nationality to race for France, because she's very, very French indeed," Duffers added.

  51. 127km - Gap hovering at 14'48 now.... This seems like the time where the sprint teams would want to start drawing them back in, and this could be the end of our contest.

  52. 128km - Fabian Wegmann, the German national champion, is our first big crash of the day, as he hits the deck pretty hard. Slippery and wet conditions out there have made this stage much more challenging than predicted. Gerolsteiner's Wegmann, the 2004 Giro mountain jersey winner, is back on a new bike and trying to ride his way back into the peloton though now.

  53. 129km - Our expert picks are in.... The legendary David Duffield has predicted Mark Cavendish! And Ireland's 1987 Tour champion Stephen Roche has also tipped Cav! Roche added this little caveat, "Cav to win, if this group is caught."

  54. 130km - Here's the list of post WWII winners at Nantes : 1948 : Guy Lapébie (Fra), 1953 : Livio Isotti (Ita), 1959 : Roger Rivière (Fra), 1968 : Franco Bitossi (Ita), 1974 : Gerard Vianen (Ned), 1980 : Jan Raas (Ned), 1981 : Adrie Wijnands (Ned), 1982 : Stefan Mutter (Sui), 1983 : Bert Oosterbosch (Ned), 1984 : Pascal Jules (Fra), 1986 : Eddy Planckaert (Bel) then Bernard Hinault (Fra), 1990 : Moreno Argentin (Ita), 2000 : Tom Steels (Bel), 2003 : David Millar (Gbr). The Dutch with an impressive record in Nantes, with them being the second behind the French for most victories.

  55. 131km - Gap steady at 14'15 for the time being. We did have one prediction of 22 minutes, I now realize, so no one will go over.

  56. ----- - Just to catch you up on the Montauban-de-Bretagne sprint back at km 62 : 1. Frischkorn, 6 pts, 2. Feillu, 4 points, 3. Dumoulin, 2 points.

  57. 135km - GAP UP TO 14'15!! We're running out of guesses. If everyone goes over, of course, we will give the Pantani book to the person who came closest.

  58. 138km - At the time competition director Jean-Francois Pescheux also explained the decision not to have any time bonuses this year and to make the first two stages tricky uphill finishes rather than pure sprint stages: "The first week will not necessarily be the exclusive property of the sprinters. The end of the first stage, for example, is a two-kilometre slope. So a great finisher can win but also a sprinter or a rider who broke away earlier in the stage." He called that one perfectly, as classics star Alejandro Valverde earned a brilliant win in stage one.

  59. 139km - An interesting question in from Garry Wilkinson. Garry asks: "Why was there no Prologue this year?" Good question. The short answer is change. When the Tour route was unveiled back in October of 2007, Tour director Christian Prudhomme said he wanted to freshen up the race's image. "We wanted to put rhythm into the first week," Prudhomme said at the time. "We wanted to offer different scenarios..... We want the Tour to rediscover its romanticism. It means the plot will not be obvious." Thanks for the question Garry.

  60. 140km - The gap up to 13'50

  61. 143km - Our gap contest is still in play, as the leaders build the margin to 12'55.

  62. 145km - Millar, who has come back as a fine advocate for cleaning up the sport, will be one of the favourites for tomorrow's 29.5 kilometre time trial through Cholet.

  63. 148km - A good sign for Mark Cavendish? The last time a Tour stage finished in Nantes it was a 49km time trial back in terrible conditions in 2003, and it was won by his fellow Briton David Millar. The Scot beat out a star-studded group, with Americans Tyler Hamilton and Lance Armstrong second and third respectively and Jan Ullrich. That was of course before a two-year doping ban for Millar, a similar ban for Hamilton, and before Ullrich was discredited for his involvement in the Operacion Puerto doping affair and sacked from his T-Mobile team. It's good that Millar was the one to make it back.

  64. 149km - Valverde went onto say that he thought today's flat stage, ahead of tomorrow's individual time trial, would be far easier than the first two days of racing. Unfortunately, today's route is crossing winds of more than 60 km/h, so it might not be as easy as the Spaniard thought.

  65. 150km - Uh, oh! Our first dip in the gap!! The margin shrinks to 11'30... If this keeps up, we could have a Weiner!

  66. 154km - Stage one winner, yellow jersey, and overall favourite Alejandro Valverde had this to say about yesterday's second stage: "Because of the course, the wind and the fact we had to chase behind the escapees, the stage was a very fast one. [It was] very hard and also a little bit dangerous but I particularly want to highlight the fact that it was really beautiful to spend this second stage of the Tour with the yellow jersey upon my shoulders."

  67. 155km - More green jersey points up for grabs at the Becherel sprint (km 48,5) : 1. Longo Borghini, 6 pts, 2. Feillu, 4 points, 3. Frischkorn, 2 points.

  68. 155km - Gap up to 11'45.

  69. 158km - Felix calling me out on my misspelling of the word DISQUALIFIED!! now, and rightfully so. It doesn't change the fact that he is DISQUALIFIED!!

  70. 159km - A little bit of history for you: Belgian legend Eddy "the cannibal" Merckx is to this day the only Tour winner to finish the race with the yellow jersey, green jersey and polka dot (climber's jersey) having won all three in 1969. The white jersey for best young rider did not exist yet, but he would have won that one too....

  71. 160km - Spoke much too soon. The latest gap is actually up to 11'20.... Dozens more are out of this contest as the time crosses the 11 minute mark.

  72. 161km - Uh, oh.... We could have called this just in time, as the gap has steadied at 10'30..... We'll wait until it starts to drop for good before we officially announce our Weiner though.

  73. 12:41 - TIME UP!! We have received the last of our guesses, and out of the kindness of our heart will accept all entries as of 12:41. Any more emails will not be accepted. Thank you for all your guesses, but you can stop emailing me for the moment.

  74. 163km - Felix has, quite cheekily we might add, "corrected" his guess. Apparently his original email was missing a digit... We've got one word for you Felix: DISQAULIFIED!!

  75. 164km - Lead up to 10'30... Just three minutes to go to get your entries in!! This is far more tense than yesterday's historic Wimbledon final between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer if you ask me.

  76. 165km - The average speed in the first hour of racing was 39.km/hour, just so you know. The poor weather not letting the pace get too high, but still a good rate from our escapees.

  77. 166km - Lead up to 9'50..... Nearing ten minutes.

  78. 168km - About a dozen more entries, but about a dozen more disqualified for going over as the gap hits 9'40! Just eight minutes to get your guesses in....

  79. 170km - Gap up to 8'40.... It's starting to steady a bit.... Just 12 minutes to go to email your max gap guesses in to jstahl@eurosport.com and have a chance to win your very own copy of Marco Pantani's Biography....

  80. 175km - The gap is already up to 8'20, disqualifying Robert Peak (8'15), Carol Walthew (8'08), and even Felix (6'45)!! Let's get our guesses in by, oh, say 12:40 BST (20 minutes from now), out of fairness sake. Any entries after that will not be considered.

  81. 181km - Precious green jersey points to report from the intermediate sprint at Saint-Piat : 1. Dumoulin, 6 pts 2. Longo Borghini, 4 points, 3. Feillu, 2 points.

  82. 183km - American William Frischkorn (Garmin Chipotle - formerly Slipstream, but now delicious, delicious Chipotle) has taken the lead in this escape group in the early going as he tries to push the pace a bit.

  83. 185km - The gap is up to 6'30. Nobody is disqualified for under-guessing yet, but we're getting close.... Out of fairness, we will not be revealing any of our entries until we have a Weiner....

  84. 193km - The gap guesses just pouring in now!! Our favourite blogger, Felix Lowe, has even emailed in a guess, but he will have to be excluded because he's part of our Eurosport team. You should all read our man's excellent Tour de France blog, "Blazing Saddles." Today's edition includes an inside peak into the minds of French break-away artists, "This duck fat pate is tres bon, don't you fink?" and some more excellent wine tips. Copy the link to read: http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/07072008/58/tour-de-france-blazin-saddles-tdf-blog.htm

  85. 195km - Aside from Zabel, who this blogger has happily included in his Fantasy TDF team (sadly we have not included yesterday's winner Thor Hushovd, who is the same price as Zabel at 6,000 euros, but happily we are still dominating the Eurosport office league), some of today's sprint contenders include Gert Steegmans (5,000), Robbie McEwen (8,300), our British hope Mark Cavendish (7,000), his High Road team-mate Gerald Ciolek (7,900), and Hushovd. To get involved in fantasy TDF, just paste the below link into your browser: http://fantasy.tour-de-france.eurosport.com/default.aspx?page=logOff

  86. 197km - France's Romain Feillu is the best placed of the four men in this early break (58th at 18 seconds behind yellow jersey Alejandro Valverde).

  87. 198km - The gap is already up to three minutes! Let's start things off with a guessing game today. What is the max level you think this gap will reach before the peloton starts to reel it in? Email jstahl@eurosport.com with your response and you could win a copy of Matt Rendell's classic read "The death of Marco Pantani: A biography."

  88. 203km - Another sprinter who will hope to contend today is German Erik Zabel. The six-time green jersey and 12-time stage winner turns 38-years-old today. Happy birthday Erik! Having not won a stage since 2002, the sprint veteran will not be a favourite today, but he should never be discounted.

  89. 205km - Already we get the day's first attack! Longo Borghini (Barloworld), Feillu (Agritubel), Dumoulin (Cofidis) and Frischkorn (Garmin Chipotle) have escaped and are building a gap back to the peloton.

  90. 208km - AND THEY'RE OFF!! The official start is given at around 12:30 local time.

  91. 11:25 - A quick note about the weather, it's grey and cool (18°) at the start line today.

  92. 11:10 - The depart fictif, or virtual start, has just been given, we're just moments away before the official start of this pancake flat 206 kilometre race from Saint-Malo to Nantes. This is definitely one for the sprinters, and who knows? Maybe even one for Mark Cavendish.

  93. ----- - Welcome to LIVE text comments and timing of the third stage of the Tour de France starting right here from 11:30 BST!