On Friday, many of the riders at the Tour de France may have been breathing a sigh of relief, comforted in the fact that they had survived a very difficult opening week. For Estonian Jaan Kirsipuu (Ag2R Prevoyance), it was not only physically taxing, but also a mental challenge as well. However, he bounced back on Stage 6 and scored the second Tour de France stage win of his career, on the 211.5km stage from Commercy to Strasbourg.

It won’t get any easier for the riders from here on out, but at least now, the Tour may settle down into a more recognizable rhythm.

Week one of the Tour was among the most difficult openers in recent years. Following yesterday’s team time trial, race leader Stuart O’Grady commented, "We were very tired [Thursday] morning. This has been a very hard first few days — the hardest I’ve ever been in."

O'Grady spends another day in yellow.

Photo: Graham Watson

It’s been a mix of heavy winds, up-and-down roads, nervous energy, hard racing and dangerous crashes that have all contributed to the collective fatigue of the peloton after the first seven days. All of that also wore on the confidence of Kirsipuu, whose first career Tour de France stage win came in 1999.

The week began with Kirsipuu in the hunt for an early yellow leader’s jersey, as he chased after intermediate time bonuses on the roads of northern France and Belgium. But his lack of success in the finishes began to wear on him. "The first days of the race have been very difficult," he said. "I wasn’t very confident. In the back of my mind, I didn’t think I could win a stage."

Friday’s stage didn’t look tailor-made for the sprinter Kirsipuu either. Far from being a typical, flat stage that the Ag2R rider excels at, the race headed into the Vosges mountains near the German border, and included the first Category 2 climb of this year’s Tour, the 2377-foot, 7.9 percent Col du Donon.

But following that climb, the final 50km of the stage saw some of the flattest roads yet in this year’s Tour, and Kirsipuu would be able to capitalize at the end.

First, though, the main peloton had to bring back a group of five riders that had been away since the 45km mark. The move began with an attack by former world champion Laurent Brochard (Jean Delatour) and Axel Merckx (Domo-Farm Frites), just after the first intermediate sprint. Shortly after, they were joined by Italian Michele Bartoli (Mapei-Quick Step), Belgian Rik Verbrugghe (Lotto-Adecco) and Frenchman Frédéric Bessy of O’Grady’s Crédit Agricole team.

With Bartoli beginning the day only 3:43 behind O’Grady, the Crédit Agricole team kept a steady rhythm at the front to prevent the break from gaining too much time.

"We’re obviously going to try and defend [the race lead] today," said Crédit Agricole’s Jonathan Vaughters before the race. "Tomorrow’s a lot hillier, probably a little tougher for [O’Grady], so we’ll see about then."

With the goal of keeping O’Grady in the yellow leader’s jersey for one more day, the French-based squad held the five leaders to a lead of about 3:30 for the next 100km, through wooded countryside; open, rolling farm roads; and the little villages along the route in northeast France.

That’s pretty much how the race stayed until the final 4km of the Col du Donon — through the forests of the Vosges — about 60km from the finish. The five leaders crested the top with a lead of about 3:25, with Kirsipuu’s Ag2R team among those at the front of the chase. At the back of the peloton, several of Kirsipuu’s sprinter rivals were suffering — among them Mapei’s Stefano Zanini and Tom Steels and Domo’s Fred Rodriguez and Romans Vainsteins — but after the climb there was still plenty of time and flat roads on which to catch back on.

On those roads, the gap began to come down, but the escapees held on until the bitter end, with Verbrugghe the last to be caught, with only 5km remaining.

With the sprinters having made it back into the peloton following the Category 2 climb, the race set up for a fast finish, on a long, flat and wide final 3km along the canal in Strasbourg.

The usual characters came to the front, with Rodriguez looking to set up Vainsteins, Mapei going to the front for Steels, and Zabel edging his way to the front.

But with 500 meters to go, Ag2R’s young Belgian national champion Ludovic Capelle shot to the front with Kirsipuu in tow, and the Estonian finished things off beating Bonjour’s Damien Nazon and Lampre’s Jan Svorada to the line.

In fourth position, but later relegated to last in the main group, came Steels, whose erratic sprint in the finale earned him his penalty.

For Kirsipuu, it was a perfect sprint ending to a strange first week. "The first few days were kind of crazy. There were no real tactics; it was like bingo, and Zabel was very lucky [to get two stage wins]," he said.

With bigger mountains still to come, Kirsipuu may have picked the perfect day for his stage win. "Tomorrow will be very difficult, and then it will be days and days of suffering," he said.

That will begin with Stage 7 from Strasbourg to Colmar, through the Vosges mountains. Included in the route are three Category 3 climbs and two Category 2 climbs, including the 18.4km-long Col du Calvaire late in the race. It will be the first real taste of the mountains for the riders, who after that will look ahead to Stage 10, and the climb to Alpe d’Huez.

Race notes

Include the Postal team among those who were happy to survive the first week. The team endured several crashes, including Thursday’s crash during the wet, slick team time trial, and Tyler Hamilton, Roberto Heras and Christian Vande Velde are all sporting bandages at the end of the first week. For Vande Velde, Friday was a tough day after his hard crash in the team time trial.

"It was a long day today," he said after Stage 6. "I started to loosen up a little after the climb, which was kind of weird."

Vande Velde said he’d get looked at by the team chiropractor, and then reiterated, "It was just a long day … oozing all over the place."