At the last possible second, Belgian Quick-Step sprinter Tom Boonen found the open door from inside the peloton and ignited his turbos, clinching first place in Stage 3 and the race’s green jersey for the second consecutive day. With his finishing burst timed to perfection, sprinter-of-the-moment Boonen even had time for a victorious two-handed salute.

Another stage win for Tom Boonen,this time in Tours.

Another stage win for Tom Boonen, this time in Tours.

After a surge to the front in the final 325 feet, 24-year-old Boonen crossed the finish line in Tours in four hours, 36 minutes, and nine seconds, just inches ahead of the spoke-to-spoke mel茅e of chasing riders. He held off Austrian Peter Wrolich (Gerolsteiner) and Aussie Robbie McEwen (Davitamon-Lotto), in second and third places, respectively. However, McEwen was subsequently relegated to 186th place, the last place in the main peloton, after the race jury ruled that he hindered rival Stuart O’Grady’s (Cofidis Credit) line to the finish, boosting O’Grady’s placement to third from fourth.


Clad in the maillot jaune on Independence Day, American Dave Zabriskie (CSC) will wear yellow for the third successive day during tomorrow’s 42-mile team time trial, which begins in Tours and creeps further inland to Blois.


“It’s nice to be in yellow on the Fourth of July,” Zabriskie told the Associated Press. “We can celebrate with some fireworks when I get home, a barbecue, and drink the drinks everyone loves to drink.”


Flanked throughout the 132-mile leg from La Ch芒taigneraie to Tours by his Discovery Channel teammates, race favorite Lance Armstrong has been keeping a low profile since exploding past T-Mobile rival Jan Ullrich in Saturday’s opening Stage 1 time trial. Armstrong is bidding for an unprecedented seventh-consecutive title before retiring.


In today’s opening miles, French rider Nicolas Portal (Ag2r Prevoyance) and Erik Dekker (Rabobank), the 2004 Dutch champion who won today’s battle for the red polka-dot jersey, created an early lead on mile 17 and held off the peloton until the very last mile of the stage. Saunier Duval’s Rubens Bertogliati caught and stayed with the lead duo minutes after their break, but dropped back into the pursuing peloton 20 minutes from the finish line.


Sporting the Tour’s white jersey, worn by the best under-25 rider, Swiss Fabian Cancellara (Fassa Bortolo) blazed past the lead duo in the dying moments, but he was only able to hold on temporarily before the peloton caught him and barreled across the finish line on Avenue de Grammont en masse.


Tomorrow’s leg between Tours and Blois involves this year’s first team time trial, promising a fast and tactically crucial battle along the left bank of France’s famous River Loire, and in which the key teams will be looking to forge a lead with a superior team performance.

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Despite suffering from a severe toothache that nearly caused him to withdraw from the 2005 Tour de France before it even started, Belgian sprinter Tom Boonen (Quick-Step) won Stage 2 today with clinical precision, earning himself the green jersey and his third Tour stage win in two years.

Tom Boonen winning the sprint.

Tom Boonen winning the sprint.

Boonen, 24, clocked a time of three hours, 51 minutes, and 31 seconds on the largely flat, narrow 113-mile course, which ended in Les Essarts. With an explosive burst of speed in the final 165 feet, he managed to overtake Australian Robbie McEwen (Davitamon-Lotto), who finished third, and second-placed Norwegian Thor Hushovd (Credit Agricole).


Today’s bunched sprint finish was a prelude to this year’s battle for the Tour’s green jersey, awarded after each stage to the race’s overall points leader. Points are based on a rider’s placing in each stage and in the intermediate sprints along the route. Boonen, McEwen, and Hushovd are all considered favorites for this title.


After edging out six-time champion Lance Armstrong (Discovery Channel) in yesterday’s blistering record-setting time trial, American David Zabriskie (CSC) managed to retain the overall leader’s yellow jersey today. While everyone battled for space near the front of the peloton, Zabriskie’s teammate Ivan Basso, one of the Tour favorites, reached over to give him an encouraging pat on the back.


Frenchman Thomas Voeckler (Bouygues Telecom), who wore the yellow jersey for ten heroic days during last year’s race, earned the race’s red polka-dot jersey. This jersey is worn by the rider with the most climbing points, after Voeckler won on the C么te du lac de la Vouraie, a moderate half-mile ascent that was the only climb of the day.


Lance Armstrong finished 63rd, surrounded by his teammates throughout the stage to protect him from crashes or injuries.


A crash within the peloton in the final moments meant a race rule was invoked in case of accidents in the final three kilometers (1.86 miles) of any stage; without a significant difference in terms of time between the sprint finishers and trailing peloton, all riders received the same time as the stage winner.


Early in the stage, a group of 14 riders broke away from the peloton, including Voeckler, Laszlo Bodrogi (Credit Agricole), David Canada (Saunier Duval), and Sylvain Calzati (Ag2r Prevoyance), to establish what appeared to be a promising lead. The quartet took turns at setting the pace in the lead echelon and at one point was more than four minutes ahead of the peloton.


With 46.6 miles left, an effort initiated by Zabriskie’s Team CSC spurred the initial push to quash their lead, soon followed by the Francaise des Jeux team with Australian Baden Cooke, and the Davitamon-Lotto team led by fellow Aussie Robbie McEwen. The breakaway group’s lead disappeared with 6.2 miles remaining as the contending teams fine-tuned their plans for the last push of the day.


The 132-mile course for stage three tomorrow begins in La Ch芒taigneraie and heads inland toward the historic town of Tours, a long, twisting route that passes some of the Loire Valley’s famous ch芒teaux.

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