Frenchman Pierrick Fedrigo emerged powerfully at the end of a 145-km breakaway to win the 14th cycle stage of the Tour de France today.
The 2005 French champion had avoided a three-man crash three-quarters of the way through and then outsprinted Italian Salvatore Commesso in a nail-biting finish.
American Christian
Vandevelde came home third three seconds behind with the peloton seven seconds adrift of Bouygues Telecom rider Fedrigo.
That meant Spaniard Oscar Pereiro retained his overall leader's yellow jersey, one minute 29 seconds clear of American Floyd Landis.
"My team enjoyed it today and they showed that they were a good team overall," Pereiro, from the Caisse d'Epargne team, said.
"I want to keep the yellow as long as possible. Nobody expected us to have it, but now we have, we'll have to see day by day."
"We had a good first week but all our breakaway attempts failed so we wanted to make amends for this," Fedrigo said.
It was first Tour stage win for the Bouygues Telecom team which has been in existence for seven years.
After 35 kms, six riders, including Fedrigo, broke clear and opened a gap of 5min 35sec but 39km from home three men -- Belgium's Rik Verbrugghe, German Matthias Kessler and Spaniard David Canada -- came to grief.
Verbrugghe skidded, hit a barrier and went over. Canada also slammed the barrier and brought down Kessler who then flew over the top.
Kessler managed to get back on his bike but Verbrugghe (broken thigh) and Canada (broken collar-bone) are out of the rest of the Tour.
Monday is a welcome rest day for the riders before three consecutive stages of high mountain climbing in the Alps.
- REUTERS
