Sunday, 13 April: Teddy Pons leads the overall standings in the 17 edition of the Karujet going into today’s fourth and final stage.

The French rider, who won the Karujet in 2011, is within sight of second title and heads into the fourth and final stage with an 8:51.785 second advantage over Martinique rider, Ugo Fidelin, after finishing in second place in yesterday’s gruelling and dramatic 144km stage, with Alexandre Barret becoming the third different stage winner, Pons’ biggest rival for the title Fidelin taking third.

The majority of the riders agreed stage 3 was the hardest yet, especially along the Canal Des Saintes and around the Island with 1.5 metres waves coming from both sides, and saw a reshuffle in the standings with title hopefuls Lucas Granger who won stage 1 and led the standings after stage two and third-placed Chris MacClugage both having problems, Granger breaking after 20 minutes in, MacClugage going out at the start.

Fidelin moved out to an early lead ahead of Francois Medori and Barret but conceded position to both, with Barret hitting the front, Frederic Roussel running in fourth.
 
  
At around the 85km Barret dropped to fifth with engine issues, Medori and Fidelin taking advantage to run one –two ahead of Cedric Ramassamy, Teddy Pons running strongly in fourth. But Medori’s lead was short-lived breaking down and going out, Lucas Granger suffering the same fate, followed almost immediately by Jean-Bruno Pastorello’s exit.
 

Pons hit the front and led briefly before a recovering Barret stormed passed him to lead into the pit stop ahead Kevin Carlini, Pons, Fidelin and Yann Ponama.
 
 
Barret was first back out on the course followed by Pons with Carlini stranded in the pits and retiring, and never looked back carving out a 4km lead to take the win from Pons by 6:52.146 seconds.

Fidelin made a late charge to pass Karam to take third with Roussel and Ponama completing the top six.

 
The final four-leg stage to decide the outcome of the 17 edition of the Karujet is 126.4kms from Viard to Saint-Marie, Le Gosier and back with the first start at 11.00hrs (local / 15.00hrs GMT).

Karujet – stage 3 results

1. Alexandre Barret (fra): 01:59:44.00

2. Teddy Pons (fra) + 6:52.1s

3. Ugo Fidelin (mtq) + 12:36.9s

4. Vincent Karam (glp) + 14:02.1s

5. Frederic Roussel (glp) + 14:16.0s

6. Yann Ponama (glp) + 16:15.6s

Overall classification

1. Teddy Pons (fra): 04:43:08.146s

2. Ugo Fidelin (mtq) + 8:51.785s

3. Vincent Karam (glp) + 11:47.006s

4. Alain Tarzia (fra) + 24:43.416s

5. Vincent Thomas (glp) + 31:50.086s

6. Franck Arnoux (glp) + 49:40.253s

For the complete classification go to results section in aquabike.net

For further event information go to karujet.com

Photos: Nicolas Defaux