Rodriguez wins crash-marred 3rd stage, Froome leads Tour de France

Katusha rider Joaquim Rodriguez won the third stage of the Tour de France on Monday while Team Sky's Chris Froome took the leader's yellow jersey after a mass crash caught former leader Fabian Cancellara.

Rodriguez repeated his heroic victory at the Fleche Wallonne in 2012, kicking up the punishing Mur de Huy to wrap up the 159.5km ride from Antwerp, Belgium in three hours 26 minutes and 54 seconds.

The Spaniard attacked about 400 meters from the line and held off Froome, the 2013 Tour champion, to the second place by a narrow margin.

France's Alexis Vuillermoz took a surprise third at four seconds ahead of Ireland's Dan Martin with fellow Frenchman Tony Gallopin.

Froome, however, earned six extra seconds with his second finish and took over the yellow jersey by just one second from German Tony Martin of Etixx-Quick Step.

American Tejay van Garderen is in third place overall with 13 seconds off the pace after losing 11 seconds on the day.

"It is very unexpected, I was hoping to be up there today and to put more time on my rivals," said the Briton.

Twenty riders were involved in the spectacular crash 100km into the stage, just before climb No. 1, that was caused by Frenchman William Bonnet, took down the overall race Fabian Cancellara at the time and saw four riders abandon.

Bonnet was taken away by the race medical staff on a stretcher but he was conscious. His team said he was to undergo surgery on a broken cervical vertebra, although his condition was not serious.

The organizers were forced to neutralize the race for about 10 minutes and to cancel one of the four short and sharp climbs.

"We were riding at high speed, about 85-90 kph, and we heard a huge noise," said Rodriguez. "For the race to be neutralized it has to be pretty serious."

Tuesday's fourth stage will start out from Seraing and end in the northern French town of Cambrai, a 223.5km ride with 13km of cobblestone sections dotted around the route. Endi