Pascal Richard, the Linda McCartney Pro Cycling Team’s Olympic Road Race Champion was in the thick of the action in today’s brilliant 3rd stage of Tirreno – Adriatico.

Pascal drove a select group of forty riders that stole a march on the rest of this elite field. The race is now neatly balanced, with the big guns poised to fight out a furious battle over the next few days.

The stars of the day were Dutch favourite Michael Boogerd, who strived with all his might to break the race up, and super-cool world no.1 Laurent Jalabert. As Boogerd put in something like a dozen attacks on the last vicious climb, Jalabert easily matched him at every turn, then cruised through to take both the stage and the overall lead.

It was a fascinating day of racing in the mountains near Montecassino. This afternoon the stage was set for a different kind of battle to the one that raged here in 1943. Laurent Jalabert marshalled his Once troops with ruthless efficiency, and all eight members of the crack Spanish squad moved to the front of the peloton as the final twisting ascent approached. One by one they buried themselves at the front of the line, stretching the long line of riders behind them to breaking point. One of the first to crack was German Tour de France winner Jan Ullrich, who eventually trailed in almost 14 minutes behind Jalabert in the last group.

Max Sciandri and Maurizio De Pasquale of the Linda McCartney team accompanied Pascal Richard into the front group, and all three of them attempted attacks, but the Once machine ground it’s way back up to them each time. Then it was all-hands-to-the-pump as Boogerd unleashed the first of seemingly countless efforts to escape. He was countered by the excellent Davide Rebellin, who went on to claim second behind Jalabert at the summit.

Once’s work gave Mapei a hard day, and their World Champion Oscar Freire slipped down to 10th overall. Michele Bartoli still struggles to regain his former level (he won this race last year) and lost a further 5 minutes on the climb.

Pascal came in just 10 seconds behind the winner in 29th place, after forcing the pace of the chase group for much of the final climb. Max was alongside the man who started the day in the leader’s jersey, Roman Vainsteins, a further 47 seconds down, and Maurizio was not far behind.

Tayeb Braikia shrugged off a crash in the last 25kms to finish safely, and Ciaran Power, David McKenzie, Bjornar Vestol and Matt Stephens all came in with the main bunch.