This year Benat Intxausti is set to play a key support role for Alejandro Valverde in the Tour de France but today he saw his preparations get a significant blow. The Basque crashed in today's stage of the Criterium du Dauphiné and even though initial examinations showed no broken bones, pain in his shoulder may force him to leave the race.

Furious pace towards the Col du Béal yesterday in the 2014 Critérium du Dauphiné added to a demanding stage three Tuesday - the longest in this year's event, over 194km from Ambert to Le Teil - and headwind caused a delay for the bunch of almost fifty minutes over the scheduled time of arrival.

Despite continuous ups and downs in the parcours, the bunch always kept the three original escapees - Kadri (ALM), Berhane (EUC) and Benedetti (TNE) - under control and reeled them back in after the downhill of Mûre (Cat-2), following a crash which caught Sylwester Szmyd and Beñat Intxausti. The duo made it safely to the finish, though the Basque rider underwent preliminary medical checks due to pain in his shoulder; no fractures were revealed, yet Intxausti will decide to continue or not depending on his evolution overnight.

Movistar Team's share of protagonism was covered today by Imanol Erviti. An attack by Jens Voigt (TFR), responded by the Spaniard, created an eight-man attempt which reached an advantage of 45 seconds, only caught with 8km from the end as several teams with sprinters pulled at full strength at the head of the peloton to guarantee a bunch sprint finish.

Arndt (GIA) narrowly beat Boeckmans (LTB) as all main favourites reached the finish together, with Chris Froome (SKY) in yellow before Wednesday's tricky finale. The Col de Manse (Cat-2) will be crested just 12km from the finish of stage four in Gap.