Cipollini takes Tour de France lead

AT THIS stage of the Tour de France the yellow jersey is coveted by most of the peloton but shunned by riders who are thinking in the long term.

Thus it was that over yesterday's 120-mile stage Chris Boardman made no attempt to defend the jersey he won in Saturday's prologue time trial, while Italy's Mario Cipollini did his utmost to relieve him of it, and succeeded.

Almost the first thing Boardman did after scorching through the streets of Rouen to repeat his victory of 1994 in the Tour opener, was to tip Cipollini as the man most likely to take the lead off him after he posted a surprisingly good time, just outside the top 20.

As in all the early stages, time bonuses were on offer for the intermediate sprints and the finish. Prologue time trials such as Saturday's are Boardman's personal predilection, but brief, intense sprints are Cipollini's speciality. Attempting to hold off the Italian would have wasted valuable energy which the Wirral rider will need over the next three weeks if he is to achieve his objective of riding consistently and possibly taking a place in the first 10.

Even before the start yesterday Boardman's Gan team were more interested in winning the stage through their sprinter Fred Moncassin. However, Cipollini halved his 18-second deficit on Boardman by the time he sighted the finish line, at the foot of a fast descent into this little spa town. No rider in the peloton has a better sense of occasion, and he timed his effort perfectly to take the stage and yellow jersey.

"There was never going to be any way that I was going to be able to take on Cipollini," said Boardman afterwards. "But I achieved my main objective for the day, and stayed out of trouble."

In this, he did better than most of the peloton, including last year's winner Bjarne Riis. The Dane was livid with rage at the finish at losing a minute after he was caught in a mass pile-up close to the finish, which delayed three-quarters of the 198-rider bunch.

Yesterday's crash happened close to the front of the bunch on a slight descent through a right-hand bend, and was a two-wheeled version of a pile- up on the M25 in the rush hour. An unidentified rider touched the wheel of the man in front, lost control and fell. Others piled into him, blocking the road almost instantly.

Riis was among those who were able to stop, but were left standing waiting for the blockage to clear. At the front, the sprinters and their teams of domestiques were setting a furious pace, and with the finish within eight miles, the men who were held up or knocked down had no chance of ever seeing them again.

As the race entered the final kilometre, among those driving the remnants of the bunch was Riis' team mate Jan Ullrich, who did not know that his leader had been left behind, and was working in the interests of the team sprinter Erik Zabel. However, the 23-year old German had shown on Saturday that he was fitter than his leader, at least over the short prologue course, when he finished 12 seconds faster than Riis, and was within three seconds of beating Boardman, and he added a minute to this yesterday.

For all his protestations of team loyalty, Ullrich has definitely gained the upper hand on his leader of last year, even if fate has played a hand. Predictably, the accident-prone Swiss Alex Zulle was among the many who hit the tarmac. He had defied medical logic to take fifth in Saturday's prologue 13 days after breaking his collarbone, but told a team-mate that he feared he had repeated the fracture when he hit the tarmac yesterday. The fact that he lost a minute and 35 seconds is probably a minor concern: he may well not make it as far as the mountains.