The third stage of this year's Tour de France saw the first successful break-away group go the distance to outrace the peloton, but also the first stage win by a Frenchman, Samuel Dumoulin from team Cofidis. Compatriot Romain Feillu from Agritubel took the yellow jersey of the overall leader on July 7.

It is not unheard of for break-aways to go on all the way, though more often than not, the rest of the riders catch up, often in the last few kilometres of the stage. Such has been the case on the first two days of this year's Tour, but not this time around.

Four riders made their break inside the first five kilometres of the 208km stage between Saint Malo and Nantes, quickly building up a lead of one minute and 40 seconds. Within the first hour, the escapees built a lead of ten minutes over the peloton, which later reached nearly 15 minutes.

Inevitably, that prompted a number of teams to up the pace until it seemed that the advantage would not last. And it might not have, but for a mass crash with 25km to go, which slowed down the peloton and caused the second withdrawal from this year's Tour de France, Spaniard Angel Gomez from team Saunier Duval-Scott taken to hospital in an ambulance.

The four escapees would hold on and Dumoulin, the instigator of the break-away, would take his maiden Tour stage win, but Feillu had as much reason to smile, leaping to the top of the overall standing despite finishing only third on the day.

"The other night I dreamt of wearing the yellow jersey but there was the hill of Plumelec in my dream. Okay, it comes two days later but it’s magnificent to take it," Feillu said at the end, as quoted by the Tour's official website letour.com.

Feillu becomes the first Frenchman to wear the yellow jersey in the Tour after Cyril Dessel, who had it for one day in the 2006 race. "[Fabian] Cancellara is one minute 52 seconds behind me. I don’t know if I can keep that advantage tomorrow. I’ll see how I recover from today’s effort. I’ve heard the yellow jersey brings wings and there may be something else to defend; maybe the white jersey if I can’t defend the yellow," he said.

Cancellara, winner of three Tour stages in his career, including two last year, is the favourite for the July 8 29.5km time trial around the town of Cholet.

Spaniard Alejandro Valverde, one of this year's Tour favourites, who wore the yellow jersey for two stages, now finds himself in fourth place, one minute and 45 seconds behind Feillu. He was also overtaken by the other two riders in the break-away, Italian Paolo Longo Borghini from team Barloworld and American William Frischkorn from team Garmin, but he has maintained his slim advantage over his main rivals in the race.

Kim Kirchen from team Columbia finished the stage in 11th, enough to maintain the green jersey and the lead in the sprinters' standings ahead of Thor Hushovd from Credit Agricole, the winner of the second stage of the Tour. Legendary German Erik Zabel, six-time winner of the green jersey, lies in fifth, finishing sixth on the day he turned 38.

With no mountain climbs on day three, Frenchman Thomas Voeckler, who featured heavily in the unsuccessful break-aways in the first two stages, remains king of the mountains and will wear the polka-dot jersey at least until July 10, when the Tour will hit the first challenging climbs in the Massif Central.