With superb presence of mind and bike-handling skills David Millar survived a crash less than two kilometres from the finish in Nantes and hung on to the yellow jersey by the skin of his teeth, finishing nine seconds behind the Belgian Tom Steels, the stage winner for the second day in succession.
The peloton was heading flat out towards the finish line alongside the river Loire at about 35 miles per hour when the Swiss national champion Markus Zberg nudged his neighbour's wheel and fell instantly. Millar was just behind - ironically, riding close to the front of the string to avoid trouble - but he managed to steer his bike so that his fall was broken by the plastic-covered hay bales which line the kerb.
At this speed the bunch is lined out over almost a kilometre; Millar was "in about 20th position" when he fell. So, although he had trouble disentangling himself and getting moving again, when he did so he had only a little way to make up on the tail of the bunch. The lightning speed at which he did so spoke volumes for his current form.
Even so, the crash nearly cost Millar the yellow jersey, as it created a small gap at the front of the bunch, where Steels' team-mates were keeping the speed high before he made his final burst for the line. The Briton's half was being slightly slowed down by the first in line, the Spaniard Abraham Olano - clearly another quick thinker - who was aware that, while he could see his team-mate Laurent Jalabert just ahead playing tailend charlie on Steels' group, both the yellow jersey and last year's winner Lance Armstrong were behind him.
As the Tour finishing times are taken on the front rider of each group, so the time gap between the furiously sprinting Steels and the free-wheeling Olano was measured at nine seconds, although the distance in purely physical terms was only a few metres. It was a close-run thing and Millar had to endure a five-minute wait before the judges decided the yellow jersey was still his, with Jalabert closing to six seconds.
If Millar and his Cofidis cyclists hang on today, no Briton will have held the maillot jaune for longer in the Tour's history. Few would bet on it; Cofidis have ridden heroically for the last two days, but the teams with serious intentions in today's 70km team time-trial to the port of Saint Nazaire - Armstrong's US Postal Service, Jalabert's and Olano's pink-clad ONCE and Jan Ullrich's Telekom - have been saving their strength. So have the bulk of the field, most of whom will be in unknown territory; this stage was last held in 1995.
In this test of collective will and cohesion, dreaded by most riders due to its unforgiving nature, the Postmen will have a slight advantage, as they start five minutes after ONCE and will be able to monitor their progress to the end. For most of the rest, particularly the Mercatone Uno and Kelme teams of the climbers Marco Pantani and Fernando Escartin, it will be a grim exercise in damage limitation.
