Rabobank’s Robert Gesink narrowly edged defending champion Levi Leipheimer of Astana for the stage win, but Leipheimer grabbed the yellow jersey as the overall leader in the Tour of California on Wednesday.

Gesink and Leipheimer finished 19 seconds ahead of a chase group that included CSC’s Fabian Cancellara, who had been 6 seconds ahead of Leipheimer in the overall classification.

Leipheimer now leads Cancellara by 13 seconds in the overall race. Slipstream-Chipotle’s Tyler Farrar had the yellow jersey entering Stage 3, with a 1-second lead on Cancellara, but Farrar had to abandon during the stage because of food poisoning.

Twas an exciting finish to the 102-mile mountain stage, with several category 4 climbs and two hors categorie climbs. Gesink and Leipheimer summitted the final hors cartegorie climb, Sierra Grande, with a 1 minute 15 second lead, but they had to hammer like mad on the 20-mile descent into San Jose and beyond into the finish in Santa Clara.

The chase group of 14 riders, with members of CSC and Slipstream taking turns at the front, trimmed almost a minute off Gesink’s and Leipheimer’s lead, but not enough to keep Leipheimer out of yellow.

Leipheimer got major help on the nasty Sierra Grande climb from teammates Chechu Rubiera and Chris Horner, who rode a ridiculous pace at the front and eventually whittled the lead group to four — Gesink, Leipheimer, David Zabriskie of Slipstream and Horner — before Zabriskie and Horner dropped off about a kilometer from the summit.

Despite the loss of Farrar, Slipstream had another strong day with big rides by Zabriskie and David Millar, who was one of the horses in the chase group. American Christian Vandevelde and Tom Peterson of Slipstream also finished in the chase group.

Slipstream has three riders in the top seven (Millar 4th, Zabriskie 6th and Vandevelde 7th). Peterson is 12th. No other team has as many riders in the top 12.

Rock Racing also made its mark with Victor Hugo Pena finishing with the chase group.

BMC, which had riders on long breakaways in Stage 1 and Stage 2, had another big day as Alexandre Moos finished with the chase group.

Big George Hincapie of High Road also spent time at the front and had a 45-second lead at one point before being caught and passed on Sierra Grande by the Astana train. The Tour of Missouri winner finished 7:23 off the pace and saw his chances to win the yellow jersey evaporate.

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