After three tough days in the Pyrenees, the Tour returned to the relatively flat transition stages before moving into the Alps next week.
More on Mark Tyler Farrar came in second and Alessandro Petacchi was third.
Here's how it happened: As it was an almost pan flat stage, it was a return to the formulaic breakaway-catch-sprint pattern. Riding standard 700c bicycles as opposed to 650c frames though take a peek at what next week's Time Trial brings

Most surprisingly, Tommy Voeckler managed to keep his yellow jersey all of the way through the Pyrenees, at least in part thanks to the wariness and respect shown by the top four riders toward each other.

As soon as the race started, Mickael Delage (FdJ) attacked.


“I didn't feel that good today to be honest but I don't think anybody else did either,” said Cavendish at the finish. He is now the first rider who has ever won four road stages in four consecutive Tours.He had taken the jersey when he was part of a long breakaway from Amiens to Chartres on Stage 5 that year. Few remember that it was Stuart O'Grady who took the stage victory on that rainy day… and fewer expected Voeckler, then just 25 years old, to hold the lead through even one mountain stage.

Yet even back then we were given a telling glimpse into the determination and fortitude that have defined the Frenchman's career of over-achievement.

Despite a last gasp breakaway attempt by Philippe Gilbert and the attempts by Garmin and Lampre to break Cavendish's run, his ever-reliable lead-out man Mark Renshaw delivered him in perfect position to claim victory from the fast finishing Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Cervelo) and Alessandro Petacchi. They delivered me perfectly to the last 200 metres.

Through the feed zone, the break was again inside of 3 minutes as HTC-Highroad led the peloton. Of course HTC-Highroad was going to put up a fight, they chased down the Belgian rider. He has properly contested 21 sprint finishes at the Tour in the last four years and he was won 19 of them.40.

With 21ksm to go, Ignatiev and Terpstra attacked out of the break.
What about the Irish. Roche kept his powder dry in the bunch as he recovered from his tough day yesterday.

The inevitable FDJ rider gets into the early break

True to the pattern of almost every stage of the race so far, a small group got away in the first two kilometres. The Lampre-led peloton caught this move with 2kms to go. At this point, Garmin, Sky, and Lampre were still on the front of the peloton, and it looked like the HTC train and Mark Cavendish may be blocked in. However, a window opened, and Mark Renshaw (HTC-Highroad) led Cavendish through it to allow the Isle of Man rider to take his 19th stage win in a Tour de France.

FDJ had been on the attack in almost every stage, with Sandy Casar and Jérémy Roy coming close to stage victory on the previous two days. How the big favourites recover tonight and tomorrow will have a massive bearing on how events unfold in the Alps over the next week.
Thomas Voeckler holds the expectations of a nation having emerged as a genuine challenger for the Tour de France. There hasn't been a French winner since Bernard Hinault since 1985.
650c tires for the smaller racers
650c bicycles for the smaller racers

The God of Thunder swooped down from the mountain peaks to break French hearts in spectacular fashion yesterday.

Thor Husovd, world champion and one of the hardest men in cycling, is known for sprinting and time trialling.
The reigning world champion, Hushovd is a big, powerful rider not known as a climber. Luckily for him final 10-20 kilometers were flat and the stage did not finish on a mountain top.5 kilometers through the Pyrennees from Saint-Gaudens to Plateau de Beille. I wore it for seven days last week, and that's better than winning the green jersey. The other nine were, Thor Hushovd (Garmin Cervelo), Alessandro Petacchi (Lampe ISD), Edvald Boasson Hagen (Sky Pro Cycling), David Moncoutie (Cofidis), Lars Bak (HTC-Highroad), Maarten Tjallingi (Rabobank), Vladimir Gusev (Katusha), Dmitriy Fofonov, (Astana) and Jérôme Pineau (Quick Step).




"Winning alone on a hard day and in the rainbow (world champion's) jersey, I think it's incredible - the craziest thing I've ever done.

At 37kms, Andreas Kloden (RadioShack) abandoned the race. He knows what it takes, and the greater variety of his weaponry was perfectly illustrated by yesterday's win in a stage that included the hors-catégorie Col d'Aubisque and concluded with the successful pursuit of a lone escapee. The peloton was all together at this point. One of them, José Joaquín Rojas, currently lies second in the green jersey standings; he picked up an extra point, thereby denying it to the HTC-Highroad leader. “I knew if Moncoutie wanted to attack, I knew I couldn't follow.

At 58 kms, Lars Boom (Rabobank) abandoned the race.




He later accused the Spaniard of "taking him into the barriers" at the Intermediate Sprint, but decided it was "not worth arguing about".

Since the Aubisque came in the middle of the stage, followed by a flat run-in, the 13th stage was never going to interest the men fighting over the general classification. Over the cat-4 Côte de Belair, Roy led the break across the line, 4 minutes ahead of the peloton. Despite never testing positive for drugs, it had been revealed during the Tour that the rider nicknamed "Chicken" had missed a series of doping controls in the run-up to the race.”
Defending champion Alberto Contador of Spain finished in the peloton and sits seventh overall, 4 minutes behind Voeckler of Team Europcar and 2:11 in back of second-place rider Frank Schleck of Team Leopard-Trek. When an Italian TV reporter broke the news that he'd run into Rasmussen in Italy during the time the Dane was supposed to be in Mexico, Rasmussen was tossed from the Tour by his own team, and his absurd alibi became the stuff of legend.. Next across the line was David Moncoutie, he crossed the line ten seconds behind the God of Thunder. After Moncoutie, came Jeremy Roy just a few seconds behind. But the latter victory is now in question, due to his positive test for Clenbuterol during last year's Tour.. Moncoutie and Boasson Hagen also broke free from the rest of their break companions in an attempt to bridge to the duo out front. Next was the peloton, the group came across approximately 8 minutes back behind Thor Hushovd. So you can imagine how relieved Tour officials are that Contador doesn't look like himself this year..... Men like Alberto Contador (Saxo Bank Sungard), Andy Schleck (Leopard Trek), Cadel Evans (BMC Racing), Ivan Basso (Liquigas Cannondale) and maybe even Frank Schleck (Leopard Trek).

The last two final climbs of today's Tour de France stage defiantly set off some fireworks.

It didn't really work as expected. Following that were two HC's: Col du Tourmalet and Luz-Ardiden at the finish. Samuel Sanchez (Euskaltel Euskadi) took the stage win today.

He was 10 seconds behind the Belgian while his brother Andy - last year's runner up - is now up to fourth, 11 seconds behind Evans, after finishing sixth on Thursday.

Defending champion Alberto Contador, now seventh overall, struggled to an eighth-place finish in the Pyrenees - and now sits a full four minutes behind race leader Voeckler. The big name and highest placed rider in that group was Geraint Thomas (Sky Pro Cycling).
“I came here to look at the stage before the Tour and liked the look of it, although I knew it would be pretty hard,” said Rodriguez, whose maiden win on his race debut allowed him to move up one place to eighth overall at 4:58 behind Schleck. They had a high advantage of around 7 minutes. Most notably, it claimed Radio Shack's last remaining hope in Andrea Kloden in the fall and effectively put paid to their 2011 Tour Campaign.

"Now I'm going to try not to lose time and make it back gradually up the overall classification," said Sanchez."

It was a mixed day for the Spanish riders though, as Alberto Contador lost ground on his rivals for the yellow jersey. Troubled by the knee injury which has hindered his performance in the past week, the three-time Tour champion couldn't hold on to the climb as Sanchez peeled away and finished eighth.
No, it's obviously not his year.
Rodriguez stretched out his arms, looked back and smiled as he nosed Contador at the line in 4 hours, 58 minutes, 26 seconds.. Hoogerland, however, was dropped from this group in the closing kilometers of the climb.

As is customary on these stages, the real battle didn't begin until the final five kilometers. Other big news on the GC contenders is that, three time Tour de France champ, Alberto Contador started to loose contact with other GC contenders such as Evans and Schleck.

First Andy accelerated, drawing an immediate response from Cadel Evans, Alberto Contador and Basso and then it was immediately followed by a counter-puch from Frank Schleck.48 behind Gutierrez, Hoogerland was 20 seconds behind them, and the peloton was 1. During the descent, Thomas's back wheel locked up and him as well as his bike went skidding across the road, onto grass where he jumped off the bike and rolled a few time. The was absolutely no reaction from any of the other riders and he went on to establish 20-second gap on Evans, jumping to second place overall in the GC standings. However, just a little bit down the road, when Thomas was descending and attempting to regain contact with the breakaway, again his back wheel locked up and again he went into the grassy areas. Andreas Kloden was also involved in this incident. No one believes that he will keep it for too long, but it was a courageous and unexpected effort nonetheless. Well it seemed that the yellow jersey was not totally safe. Chavanel and Kreuziger were 3.

Contador is a significant amount of time behind his main opposition and he was widely expected to make a move to recover some of that time today.

CAVENDISH WINS AT LE TOUR
2011 - Three (after stage 11)
2010 - Five
2009 - Six
2008 - Four. On paper, this appeared to be another “typical” sprint day, with a cat-3 and a cat-4 climb on the way. Cavendish's victory puts him in the Green Points Jersey while Thomas Voeckler rolled in with the peleton to defend his overall lead on the eve of the mountain stages.

At the 13.

LE TOUR STAGE WINNERS
Eddy Merckx (Bel) 34
Bernard Hinault (Fr) 28
Andre Leducq (Fr) 25
Lance Armstrong (US) 22
Andre Darrigade (Fr) 22
Nicolas Frantz (Lux) 20
Francois Faber (Lux) 19
Mark Cavendish (GB) 18 . Uncharacteristically for the southern stages of the tour, today was yet another rainy day.

The cat-3 Cote de Tonnac occurred at 28.5kms. Tuesday's defeat by Greipel - a case of the former understudy upstaging the star turn - hurt badly.

It was 726 days earlier, during the 13th stage of the 2009 race, that Cavendish last headed the points standings, losing the green jersey at the end of that day in the Vosges and never managing to wrest it back from his Norwegian rival Thor Hushovd, despite winning six stages. Last year, he won another four stages but watched Alessandro Petacchi of Italy amass a winning points total.

With 55kms left, the break's lead dipped inside three minutes.

"Finally got my grubby little Manx mitts on the Green Jersey," the 26-year-old quipped on Twitter. Lars Boom is pulling a great bitchface. I wasn't going to let them down again.

7. Boom himself was caught at 2.

"I have to thank my team-mates for the work they did, even the guys who are in the top 10 overall gave it 100% and that shows what a great team we are. Maybe stomach problems still. Team Sky and Omega Pharma-Lotto were both vying for their sprinters, as well. He could be difficult to dislodge now.

"I was lucky there were no swerves in the peloton and I had Mark Renshaw to fight for position - it could have been quite dangerous. This gave Cavendish his third stage win and the green jersey. Up front, former world cyclocross champion Boom was taking some monster pulls, but the gap was down to 1.
Cavendish has proved twice before that he can get all the way to Paris and still be in racing form.

As the rain poured down, the chase stalled somewhat, to the benefit of the breakaway, which still had a 50-second lead with 15k to go. HTC, Sky and Garmin knuckled down to haul the group back. FYI, Boom is pronounced Boeh-m.

Germany's Andre Greipel pipped fierce rival and former team mate Mark Canvendish at the line to claim a maiden Tour de France victory on Tuesday.

Greipel took advtantage of Cavendish's early sprint to win in three hours 31 minutes 21 seconds. Greipel and Cavendish are bitter sprint rivals and this finish may be the first of several at this year's Tour.

Omega Pharma-Lotto chose the final to attack as a team to attempt to lose sprinters—particularly Cavendish—who will be challenging to get the green jersey off Philippe Gilbert.

Cavendish, who won stages five and seven last week, found an excellent position coming into the final tight turns of the stage but his normal lead-out man Mark Renshaw, had failed to stay with the lead group, forcing Cavendish to go earlier than usual. “When I knew that I could be part of the race this year, winning a stage became my goal and the team supported me in that.

Up front, the six who had been trying to establish a break had opened a 30 second advantage. "It's the most beautiful race in the world and the most famous.

At the intermediate sprint at Maurs, at the 37.”
Spaniard Jose Rojas (Movistar) finished third ahead of world champion and erstwhile 2011 Tour de France leader Thor Hushovd (Garmin-Cervelo) and Romain Feillu (Vacansoleil). 2. Went with 250m to go, but didn't 'kick' until 200m. I didn't have enough kick I kind of rolled around and Greipel just came faster and beat me," he said. At this point, they had a 3. Maybe the intermediate sprints are dampening my kick, but I'd love to wear it in Paris."

The day began with a shower of hailstones at the start in Aurillac and 178 riders began the stage, with 20 having retired since the start on 2 July in the Vendee. After this climb, however, the gap increased back to 3.