Cooke in Comfort Zone for World Cup Hat-trick

Britain's Nicole Cooke remains firmly on course for a third overall win in the season-long women's World Cup series after taking second place to the Italian Noemi Cantele in Saturday's Grand Prix de Plouay in France. That result enabled her to increase her lead dramatically over her only remaining rival, the world champion Marianne Vos of Holland.

With one event remaining, in Nuremberg on September 16, Cooke has a comfortable 80-point lead over Vos, who could only finish seventh on Saturday. Were it not for the fact that the final round offers double points the 24-year-old would have had the series sewn up a week early, but with 150 and 100 points available for first and second places in Nuremberg there is still room for an upset.

"It's not over yet," said the British national champion, "but I was very happy with my result in France and I'm in a good position before the final race."

Cooke rode across a three-woman escape, including Cantele, that got away from the field on the first of three climbs early on the last lap in the 72-mile race, with Vos left behind in the peloton.

Although Cantele attacked on the final climb to win, Cooke comfortably won the sprint from the chasing group, finishing more than a bike length ahead of another Italian, Marta Bastianelli, and Oenone Wood of Australia, who lies third in the overall standings but is 198 points behind Cooke. The men's ProTour event yesterday on the same 12-mile circuit was won by the French rider Thomas Voeckler.

Elsewhere, in the opening weekend of the Tour of Spain the former world champion Óscar Freire took yesterday's stage and the race lead at Santiago de Compostela. The Spaniard won a sprint which was marred by a crash involving several riders, including Saturday's winner of the opening stage, Daniele Bennati.

Bennati was accredited with the same finishing time as Freire because the crash came in the final three kilometers, but having finished second on Saturday the Spaniard took the overall lead by virtue of superior placings over the first two stages.