SAINT-GENIS-POUILLY , France, Aug 11, 2009 (AFP) – Kazakh rider Alexandre Vinokourov, just back from a two-year blood doping ban, on Tuesday showed a clean pair of wheels to his Tour de l’Ain rivals in winning a third stage time trial over 8.6km at Saint-Genis-Pouilly.

Vinokourov, riding for the Kazakh national team, timed 9min 50sec with Dutch rider Michiel Elijzen of Silence Lotto 10 sec adrift while overall leader Chris Horner of the United States, riding for Vinokourov’s formker stable Astana, was 13 sec off the pace in third.

“It’s a nice surprise to have won,” grinned the Kazakh veteran, who now stands 22nd three and-a-half minutes off Horner.

The four-day event ends on Wednesday.

Once one of the peloton’s toughest racers Vinokourov in 2007 tested positive for blood doping at the Tour de France.

The scandal led to the expulsion of his team Astana from the race, and a two-year ban left his career in tatters.

During his enforced sabbatical Astana was taken over by new management, and Spaniard Alberto Contador fully assumed the team leader’s role by winning all three major Tours of Italy, France and Spain.

Vinokourov said recently he would love to return to the Kazakhstan-backed outfit, and is hoping to convince Contador, who last month won his second Tour de France crown after his maiden win in 2007, to stay.

Before then the 35-year-old Kazakh is keen to test his own racing legs, and will get a chance to do so by returning to some familiar territory at the four-day Tour de l’Ain as part of a Kazakhstan national team.

Earlier, Frenchman Ludovic Turpin (AG2R) won the first part of stage three, a 103.2km ride at Lelex in the Jura Mountains, where he also won in 2003, crossing the line in 2:38.17.

Wednesday’s final stage is a 129.6km ride from Belley to Culloz ending at the Grand Colombier summit 1,501 metres above sea level.