Samu 3rd on Ax-3-Domaines

Samu climbed to a brilliant third place on yesterday's first mountainous stage in the Pyrenees to further solidify his podium place on GC. Samu responded to all of Menchov's attacks, and even put in a few of his own, to distance fellow podium rivals Gesink, Leipheimer, Van den Broeck and Andy and Alberto by a few seconds. Menchov and Samu finished side by side 54 seconds down on heroic escapist Riblon to take second and third respectively. Samu is thus still 13 seconds ahead of Menchov in fourth, while VDB is now at 60 and Gesink at 2:56. Another encouraging sign on the stage was the presence of Gorka, Egoi and Iván in the select front group up the Pailhères. They all looked strong and provided Samu more than enough help should anything, say a puncture, occure. Awesome. Eventually Egoi and Gorka came in together at 4 minutes 4 seconds, while Iván ended up in 49th place at 11 minutes. Rubén, Alán and Iñaki all rolled in with the gruppetto at 36:56.