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DAY 3
St.Valery-wn-Caux / Vire 262km
7th July 1997

Yellow Jersey / Yellow Shorts

Banana Man
Picture courtesy of VeloCity

Today, the longest stage of the entire tour, saw race leader Mario Cipollini parading
in a pair of yellow shorts and riding a yellow bike as well as the leaders Jersey, for
which he & his manager received another fine.

Chris had a quite day in the pack, a heroic brake of 110km by Thierry Gouveniou was
ended abruptly when Team Saeco decided to reel him in. The GAN team again did little
work on the front, keeping their powder dry for the finish and stages to come.

Jalabert broke away in a group of three late in the race, taking the last bonus PMU
sprint and moving up to 6th with the 6 seconds awarded.

Chris Boardman still lies in second place overall, but Cipollini, who is rumoured to
be pulling out of the race when the mountains arrive, streched his lead by winning a
PMU sprint and the final bunch sprint in fine style, making it two in a row!

St.Valery-wn-Caux / Vire 262km
  1. Mario Cipollini (Ita/SAE), dis 262,00 km in 6 h 27:47.
  2. Erik Zabel (All/TEL)                   à        00:00.
  3. Jeroen Blijlevens (P-B/TVM)                     00:00.
  4. Frédéric Moncassin (Fra/GAN)                    00:00.
  5. Serguei Outschakov (Ukr/PLT)                    00:00.

Overall

 1. Mario Cipollini (Ita/SAE)                11 h 15:30. 
 2. Chris Boardman (G-B/GAN)            à         00:36. 
 3. Jan Ullrich (All/TEL)                         00:38. 
 4. Tony Rominger (Sui/COF)                       00:41. 
 5. Abraham Olano (Esp/BAN)                       00:46. 
 6. Laurent Jalabert (Fra/ONC)                    00:48. 
 7. Jeroen Blijlevens (P-B/TVM)                   00:48. 
 8. Erik Zabel (All/TEL)                          00:49. 
 9. Tom Steels (Bel/MAP)                          00:50.


Current Chris Status!

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