Until Saturday, a stage win on the Plateau de Beille was synonymous with overall victory in the Tour de France. Marco Pantani in 1998, Lance Armstrong in 2002 and 2004 and Alberto Contador in 2007 all moved smoothly from success at the 1,780m Pyrenean summit to the yellow jersey in Paris. That sequence, however, is unlikely to survive the victory by Jelle Vanendert, a 26-year-old Belgian rider.
While the bigger names were nullifying each other's efforts, Vanendert rode away to win a stage of his first Tour, but since the Belgian lies just over 12 minutes behind the leader of the general classification, he is extremely unlikely to become the first man to win the Tour on his debut since Laurent Fignon in 1983.
Vanendert, who rides for the Omega Pharma-Lotto team, is not well known outside Belgium. He spent the spring helping his team-mate Philippe Gilbert to win a remarkable sequence of one-day classics, and a place on the Tour was his reward. He is also the cousin of Roy Sentjens, who raced in the colours of Rabobank, Lotto and Milram and retired last year after testing positive for EPO.
The real hero of the stage, which began in Saint-Gaudens, was Thomas Voeckler, who likes the yellow jersey so much that he simply refuses let it go. While the favourites for overall victory once again feinted and parried, Voeckler more than matched them for aggression and verve. On a day when he was expected to hand it over to one of the men with better credentials, he made himself look like a proper leader.
"I wanted to hold on to the jersey," he said. "But I didn't think I'd manage to keep it by more than a few seconds." Instead he maintained his lead of 1min 49sec over Frank Schleck, the elder of the two Luxembourg brothers whose efforts to damage their rivals for the general classification were again inconclusive.
"I was suffering today," Voeckler said after finishing seventh on a 168km stage that included the first category Col de la Core and Col d'Agnes as well as the concluding hors-categorie climb. "But I believe it was the same for everybody."
Voeckler came in as part of the group that was eventually whittled down to half a dozen behind Vanendert and Samuel Sanchez of Spain. While he launched no attacks of his own, he was the one who took much of the responsibility for surging up to the wheels of those who were trying to splinter the group.
By the time the riders reached the foot of the third climb of the day, the Col de Latrape, a lead of more than nine minutes had been established by a group of three Frenchmen – Julien El Fares of Cofidis, Sandy Casar of Francais des Jeux and Christophe Riblon of AG2R-La Mondiale – and one adopted son of the Hexagon, David Millar, who said the other day that he was as proud to be known as a Biarrot, thanks to his long-time residence in Biarritz, as a Scot.
The group contracted, expanded, and then dissolved, Jens Voigt falling twice in quick succession soon after the summit of the Port de Lers. Gorka Izagirre of Euskaltel-Euskadi was alone as he rode into Tarascon-sur-Ariege, the last town before the ascent to the Plateau de Beille, by the start of the climb itself his team-mate Ruben Perez Moreno was on the front. And then, as so often in this Tour, came a glorious but ultimately vain effort from a Frenchman, this time Casar of Francais des Jeux, who pulled out a margin of half a minute but was destined to suffer the same fate that befell Jeremy Roy 24 hours earlier, all his courage ultimately expended to no reward.
In the group where the real business was being done, Andy Schleck was the first to attack. His initiative did not shake off his rivals but it was enough to account for Alberto Contador's two Saxo Bank comrades, Jesus Hernandez and Daniel Navarro, although the defending champion himself seemed more comfortable than he had in the preceding days. The younger Schleck attacked again, and then once more, but each time his efforts were nullified by Ivan Basso, Cadel Evans or Voeckler, with Contador in their wake.
Basso spent some time setting a relatively relaxed tempo at the front of the group, and Frank Schleck had just pushed gently ahead when Vanendert attacked with just under 7km to go and was allowed to ride away and overtake the rapidly fading Casar. Basso then attacked twice, without profit, before Sanchez followed Vanendert's example and managed to escape.
Still the leaders were watching each other – prepared to wound but afraid to strike, as the saying goes. Basso went once more, then Evans. Finally Andy Schleck eased off the front of the group as the climb eased in the final couple of kilometres, just as his brother had done at Luz-Ardiden, to secure third place and cut his deficit to the leader by a couple of seconds.
In front of him, Vanendert and Sanchez were reversing the finishing order of Thursday's stage, which ended with the climb up to Luz-Ardiden. Behind came Evans and then Rigoberto Uran, Team Sky's young Colombian, who finished strongly and took the best young rider's white jersey from the French rider Arnold Jeannesson, becoming the second member of his team to wear it in this Tour. "I want to keep it all the way to Paris," he said afterwards.
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