Sagan wins crash-marred stage of Tour

Peter Sagan of Slovakia has won a crash-marred third stage of the Tour de France.

Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland held onto the yellow jersey after Tuesday’s 197km trek from Orchies to the fishing port of Boulogne-sur-Mer.

Sagan won his second stage in his debut Tour by outpacing a splintered pack with less than 300 metres left.

He pumped his arms as he crossed the finish, several lengths ahead of Edvald Boasson Hagen of Norway in second and fellow Slovak Peter Velits in third.

Cancellara leads Brad Wiggins of Britain in second and Sylvain Chavanel of France in third, both seven seconds back.

Australia’s defending champion Cadel Evans climbed from eighth to sixth place, 17 seconds behind.

Fellow Australian Simon Gerrans, a key rider for new Australian team Orica-GreenEDGE, was hurt in a crash during one of the crashes on Tuesday, but was able to keep riding.

Earlier in the stage, Wiggins’ chances suffered a blow when teammate Kanstantin Sivtsov also crashed out of the race.

The Belarusian allrounder was involved in a fall at 140km and the race website soon reported that Sivtsov was the first rider to abandon this year’s Tour.

Riders and team directors were nervous about stage three because of the high potential for crashes.

There are a succession of hills in the last 50km and the roads are often narrow.

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