Mancebo wins queen stage on Mont-Mégantic

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The Queen Stage of the Tour de Beauce lived up to expectations today when after a very aggressive stage, the field shattered on the final 6.8 kilometers to the finish line atop Mont Megantic. Francisco Mancebo (5-hour Energy), the 2011 overall winner, emerged from a select lead group to not only take the win but also the yellow leader's jersey at the end of stage 3 today.

In the final two kilometers, Mancebo covered an attack from last year's stage winner Matthew Cooke (CRCA) but though he was gapped, experience came into play for the Spaniard.

"The plan was to start hard on the climb, and finally UnitedHealthcare did the hard work at the bottom. I tried to attack two or three times but had no legs at the bottom. After that, in the last two kilometers, I attacked again and Matt Cooke rode strongly. I waited until the last 300 meters, I know where the finish line is and I knew that I could recover a lot of time. I was fourth with 200, 250 meters to go and I did a sprint to come back to the first place," Mancebo said.

"I attacked [at the bottom] but the legs were 'oomph, I don't feel good' but I think I needed to attack two or three more times to wake up my legs." he continued with a laugh.

Second-place finisher Cooke collapsed after crossing the finish line, five seconds behind. "Heartbreak. It's so funny because we were gapping Paco the whole way up. Honestly, I think I was probably the strongest guy here but that was a huge mistake that I made, going too early. It must have been 1.5 km, 2 km. I was just antsy," he said. "It's still good, I'll pat myself on the back in a month, not yet."

Carter Jones (Bissell) crossed the line a further seven seconds back for third. "My tactic was just to follow for as long as I could, wait for things to fall apart and see how it went from there. I wasn't sure how I was going, I've had a pretty rough two days the first two days here," said Jones who is racing for the first time at Beauce. "Once I saw that it was just Cooke, Paco and I, well I was just following them, I couldn't quite follow them and then Paco came off and it was just me chasing Cooke for a bit and somehow Mancebo came back, he passed both of us at Mach 10."

How it unfolded

Attacks flew immediately from the start of the race, riders were going up the road, left and right, but no move was sticking. Everyone wanted to be in the break, and only the right combination of riders would be allowed off the front. The Canadian National Team squad of the yellow jersey Guillaume Boivin was also on a mission to make it into a move. The result was high speed, an average of 50 km/h for the first hour of the race.

"It was full-on for two hours. No one was quite happy with the combination, you had so careful with GC guys getting up there or missing the move. Big groups were going away that were dangerous and one team would miss out, they'd bring it back," explained Jones.

The first move that seemed to have a chance went off the front. The break included Jamey Driscoll (Jamis-Hagens Berman), Marsh Cooper (Canada), Kirk Carlsen (H&R Block), Marc de Maar (UnitedHealthcare), Jeremy Vennell (Bissell) and Javier Megias Leal (Novo Nordisk).

"We were working together to establish the gap," said Driscoll. The gap went over one minute but then cooperation ceased when Carlsen stopped working, and then others soon followed suit. "It was doomed and then the Novo guy attacked, not attacked but the sleeper move, slow and steady up, slight faster than us, up the left side."

Soon after the first sprint of the day, Megias continued solo while Rob Britton (Canada) and Jason McCartney (Bissell) started to chase and ultimately made contact. The break of the day was finally established.

"As soon as they brought it back, I went with McCartney and we bridged across to the Novo guy. After that, it was just 50 or 60 kilometers of just giving'er, it's pretty much the plan to let Christian and Dom sit the most that they could for the final climb," Britton said.

The trio stayed off the front, pushing the gap to three minute and 35 seconds until they were reeled in on the second categorized climb of the day, 130 kilometers into the stage. The field, with UnitedHealthcare setting the tempo, stayed together until the right-hand turn to start the final climb with an average of 7.7 gradient.

The battle for the stage win and the general classification was on in the dwindling lead group.

"We needed to drop the time trial specialist, Ben Day was there, Meier was there, guys who ride hard in time trials were there so we needed to attack because and after fight for the stage," Mancebo said.

No one was able to get away early on the climb. "It's just so steep, guys were going, and then we'd look back and there were still five or six guys," Cooke explained.

Nathan Brown (Bontrager) finished fifth on the stage and claimed the best young rider jersey, while Jim Stemper (5-hour Energy) and Guillaume Boivin (Canada) retained the KOM and points jerseys respectively.

"Today we didn't want to be in the break but it was obvious from the start that all the teams wanted to be in and then we changed our plans. I started going into moves. I got lucky enough to be in a move and Shawn [Milne] really helped me out," said Stemper. "I've been lucky to defend this jersey, now we'll see. There are a lot of available points left."

Racing continues on Friday with the 20-km time trial which could once again re-shuffle the general classification.

"I have a good gap for tomorrow but it will be hard because I saw that Ben Day was strong and today he climbed very good. I hope to do well," said Mancebo.

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