The 3rd stage of the Tour de France 2012 took place on July 3rd, 2012. It was the first of this year's tour to be held on French soil. It was 197 km long and ran from Orchies to Boulogne-sur-Mer . All 198 registered drivers started.
The route ran mainly in a westerly direction through the Nord and Pas-de-Calais departments . The profile was almost flat in the first half of the course before the riders reached the hilly terrain of the Boulonnais region on the English Channel . At kilometer 119, the intermediate sprint was in Senlecques . A total of six mountain classifications had to be tackled in the second half of the route (four of them in the fourth and two in the third category). Four of these mountain classifications, including the finish line, were on the last 16 kilometers.
Five kilometers after the start, a group of five formed, consisting of the Dane Michael Mørkøv , the French Giovanni Bernaudeau and Sébastien Minard , the Ukrainian Andrij Hrywko and the Spaniard Rubén Pérez . The group quickly pulled away from the field and ten kilometers later achieved a maximum advantage of 5:40 minutes. After about 50 kilometers, the lead leveled off at around five minutes. Minard won the intermediate sprint in Senlecques; First out of the field was Mark Cavendish . On the descent from the first mountain prize, several riders fell in the back of the field, the Belarusian Kanstanzin Siuzou had to retire injured.
The field began to decrease the gap continuously. Bernaudeau fell back on the climb to Mont Violette, leaving four riders in the lead. 30 kilometers from the finish there was a mass fall in the back of the field; several dozen drivers lost touch and Spanish champion José Joaquín Rojas also had to retire injured. Urtasun and Minard fell back on the climb to the Côte de Herquelingue. The last remaining members of the escape group, Mørkøv and Hrywko, were overtaken by the field a little later on the climb to Mont Lambert.
Sylvain Chavanel tried to escape five kilometers from the finish , but was overtaken by the peloton on the final climb. On the uphill straight there was another mass fall, whereupon Peter Sagan was able to celebrate his second stage win in a row.
Scoring
Intermediate sprint in Senlecques after 119 km at 181 m
