Leader's bold move pays off

CYCLING:The capacity of the Tour's sprinters to shrug off the dangers of their profession never ceases to amaze, and yesterday Mark Cavendish showed that, mentally at least, he is suffering no ill-effects from his dramatic crash of Monday.

After complaining early in the stage that he felt "like an old man", the 22-year-old Manxman was rejuvenated enough to manage ninth place in one of the Tour's most dangerous finishes.

The final mile from the banks of the river Oise included three right-angled bends on narrow roads. The second and third were on cobbled setts, which make any bike rattle and buck, and which are desperately slippery if wet. It remained dry yesterday but, even so, riding through that little lot at 40mph while fighting to hold position was not for the faint of heart.

While it was not the stage win Cavendish had been hoping for, merely staying in one piece and contesting his first sprint finish in the Tour counted as a small victory.

"Our big fear was that he might lose his mental edge a little, but he still has the spirit and the feeling for it," said his T-Mobile manager Rolf Aldag, who warned that today he is still likely to be stiff and sore.

Unless the man in the yellow jersey is a sprinter, the maillot jaune does not usually contest mass finishes, but London prologue winner Fabian Cancellara is in such form at present that he can attempt anything. He made his effort as the field passed the town's magnificent chateau with 700 metres to the line, overtook a four-man escape which still had a fighting chance of the stage win, and held off the sprinters, led by the near-veteran Erik Zabel.

It was a move of perfect opportunism and sustained speed, and it sits well alongside the Swiss's biggest win to date in the Paris-Roubaix Classic, which uses some of the roads taken by the race yesterday, and, by a neat twist, has its start on the square outside the chateau where Cancellara took flight. With the time bonus for the stage win, he has extended his lead to 33 seconds over Andreas Kloden, with David Millar remaining third.

Earlier, the maillot jaune had been a key player in a bizarre episode that caused the stage to finish 40 minutes slower than the most generous timetable. Appropriately enough for the destination city where the Armistice was signed in 1918, hostilities were suspended for much of the day. This kind of truce was a frequent occurrence in less competitive times on stages when, as was the case yesterday, the riders are made to cover 150 miles, but is rare nowadays.

What was curious, however, was that the Frenchmen Nicolas Vogondy and Matthieu Ladagnous had escaped and were well ahead of the field when the go-slow happened, largely at the instigation of Cancellara's CSC team, whose task it was to control the race. The usual tactic is to leave lesser lights who attack early on such long days out front, to discourage attacks in the bunch; with the southerly wind blowing in their faces, Vogondy and Ladagnous had decided to conserve their energy so CSC followed suit.

At times, the field were "racing" at training pace, 18mph, and the two leaders had the audacity to stop and simultaneously answer nature's call in the hedge.

There was at least one man with a well-defined interest in the stage. Stephane Auge of Cofidis started the day level on points with Scotland's David Millar in the King of the Mountains competition, and thus knew exactly what he had to do on the single climb of the day, the dead straight cutting through a beechwood at Blerancourt, 22 miles from the finish.

Auge went clear well before the little hill and rapidly overhauled Vogondy and Ladagnous. Millar was philosophical. "I expected to lose the jersey tomorrow, so I thought he might as well enjoy it too."

The measled vest has been a festish of the French since the days of Richard Virenque, and most of France will no doubt enjoy it too."

Guardian Service