page_title: 2009 Tour de France, Stage 1 to Stage 11
section_title: Stage 3
hierarchical_section_title: 2009 Tour de France, Stage 1 to Stage 11 / Stages / Stage 3
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Samuel Dumoulin - Koen de Kort - Rubén Pérez Moreno - Maxime Bouet lors de l'échapée du Tour de France 2009. English: Samuel Dumoulin - Koen de Kort - Rubén Pérez Moreno - Maxime Bouet during the Tour de France 2009.
context_page_description: These are the individual stages of the 2009 Tour de France, with Stage 1 on July 4 and Stage 11 on July 15.
context_section_description: 6 July 2009 — Marseille to La Grande-Motte, 196 km
  Stage 3 was another flat stage, with a finish on the waterfront at La Grande-Motte. Like in stage 2, a four-man breakaway formed, this time consisting of Maxime Bouet, Koen de Kort, Samuel Dumoulin and Rubén Pérez. They held a maximum advantage of about 13 minutes and were caught with a little less than 30 kilometres to go by a first group who had separated themselves from the rest of the peloton as a result of accelerating in the presence of strong winds near the coastline. The group contained 28 riders, including leader Fabian Cancellara, 7-time winner Lance Armstrong and the whole Team Columbia-HTC. After a sprint, Mark Cavendish finished first. Several of the favorites and riders classified in the top 10, such as Alberto Contador, Cadel Evans, Carlos Sastre, the Schleck brothers, Levi Leipheimer and Bradley Wiggins, were not present in this group and were 41 seconds behind at the finish.
caption: Stage 3: Samuel Dumoulin, Koen de Kort, Rubén Pérez and Maxime Bouet in Arles
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