Cavendish Loses Italy Tour Lead

Britain's Mark Cavendish has lost his pink leaders jersey on the third stage of the Giro d'Italia. In today's 198km stage from Grado to the wine producing town of Valdobbiadene, Cavendish avoided a crash near the front with less than ten kilometres to go but could not stay in touch with the leaders. With less than 3km left, he realised that today was not his day and left the front guys to battle it out. Italian Alessandro Petacchi again took the victory and the LPR Brakes-Farnese Vini rider now leads the General Classification after three stages. Tomorrow's stage is 162km long from Padova to San Martino di Castrozza.