Jalabert left behind as Garcia grows

Cycling

The unheralded Marcelino Garcia surprised the favourites to win the Criterium International.

As the top challengers watched each other closely in yesterday morning's 80km mountain stage, the ONCE team leader, Laurent Jalabert, asked Garcia to make a move.

The Spaniard responded by attacking at the start of the 12km climb to the Pic de Nore and finished with a one minute lead over Jalabert and two other leading contenders, Marco Pantani and Pascal Herve.

The advantage was more than enough for Garcia to remain overall leader after the eight km afternoon time trial, won by team-mate Aitor Garmendia. Jalabert was second overall.

The defending champion, Chris Boardman, lost over two minutes in the morning's climb, too much to make up in the short time trial. But he was still good enough to secure second place in the time trial, three seconds behind Garmendia.