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Evans in yellow as Piepoli wins atop Hautacam
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Cadel Evans (Silence-Lotto) seized the yellow jersey atop Hautacam on Monday as Leonardo Piepoli (Saunier Duval-Scott) won the mountainous stage 10 of the Tour de France, while Garmin-Chipotle's Christian Vande Velde solidified his third-place overall standing.
"I can't believe it now and I couldn't believe it on the podium," said a tearful Evans, the first Australian to wear the yellow jersey since sprinter Robbie McEwen in 2004. "Yesterday was by far my Tour low and today it's definitely my Tour high. Only 26 hours have passed and it's been a bit of a rollercoaster."
Evans said his crash on Sunday left him with "a lot of bruising, a lot of swelling. I felt shocking at the start, but as you do the body re-adapts."
"I am lucky that I have been very well looked after," he added. "The team doctor patched me up from ankle to back, and there are a few holes. But I was well looked after. I am very sore just the same, but was just good enough for the final."
The stage was short on distance — just 156km — but long on climbing, with the beyond-category Col du Tourmalet serving as a warmup for the rugged ascent to the finish at the ski station of Hautacam.
The Tour has visited Hautacam only thrice, but each time the man wearing the yellow jersey at day’s end has taken it all the way to Paris — a tradition that Evans said he hopes will continue.
Early breaks
As usual, the day began with a series of breakaway attempts, including a 24-man bid that was doomed by the presence of Yaroslav Popovych (Silence-Lotto), 27th overall at 4:34, mountains king David De la Fuente (Saunier Duval), 67th at 30:19 and green jersey Oscar Freire (Rabobank).
First Milram chased, then Garmin-Chipotle, and at 55km the escapees had all of 45 seconds’ advantage over the field. By the category-3 Loucrup ascent, the break had disintegrated and all but seven of its members absorbed. Still out front were Freire, Leonardo Duque, Remy Di Gregorio (FDJ), Markus Fothen (Gerolsteiner), Jeremy Roy (FDJ), Fabian Cancellara (CSC) and Hubert Dupont (Ag2r).
Freire took top points in the sprint at Pouzac, as he had earlier at Lamarque, taking the actual lead in the points competition from race leader Kim Kirchen (Columbia).
Behind, the chase throttled back and Agritubel's Freddie Bichot decided it was time to try to bridge to the break. As he shot forward, the bunch went backward, handing the escapees an eight-minute leash as Bichot quickly closed to within a minute of the break.
Up the Tourmalet
Then Saunier Duval-Scott decided to apply a little pressure, joined by a pair of riders from Team CSC, and the injection of pace soon began popping riders off the back, including De la Fuente, George Hincapie (Columbia), Damiano Cunego (Lampre) and astoundingly, a pair of former yellow-jersey wearers — Alejandro Valverde (Caisse d’Epargne) and Stefan Schumacher (Gerolsteiner).
Up front, Di Gregorio had left the break behind on the Tourmalet, chasing the 5000-euro Jacques Godet prize awarded to the first rider to cross the high point of this stage. Behind him, Freire had drifted out of the break.
Meanwhile, CSC was pouring it on, with Jens Voigt and the Schleck brothers setting a relentless tempo for Carlos Sastre. But the battered Evans was hanging tough, as were race leader Kirchen, double stage winner Riccardo Riccò (Saunier Duval-Scott), Denis Menchov (Rabobank) and Christian Vande Velde (Garmin-Chipotle).
Di Gregorio scored the prize at the summit and began the descent alone, trailed by the fragments of the breakaway — Duque, Dupont and Roy — followed in turn by the yellow-jersey group with 50km to race, with Riccò briefly popping out to snatch mountain points at the top and close to within eight points of De la Fuente.
Further back, Valverde was glued to teammate Oscar Pereiro’s wheel, hoping to rejoin the other favorites before they began the final ascent to Hautacam, a 14.4km grind to a height of 1520 meters with an average grade of 7.2 percent, but some nasty double-digit grades in the middle.
The Kirchen group quickly swept up Freire on the rapid, winding descent as Pereiro and David Arroyo towed Valverde after the other favorites, joined by Schumacher and Cunego.
But the CSC train was racing along at full throttle, driven by Voigt and world time trial champion Fabian Cancellara, and with 24km to race the yellow-jersey mob had put more than a minute on the desperately chasing Valverde group.
With Hautacam looming just ahead, Di Gregorio clung to a lead of some two minutes over Duque, Dupont and Roy, with the Kirchen group a further minute back and coming up fast. Despite Pereiro’s best efforts, Valverde had conceded another minute to the yellow jersey with a very unpleasant 17km still to race.
Storming up Hautacam
On the lower slopes of the climb, Di Gregorio’s advantage had shrunk to less than a minute. CSC was holding all the cards in the chase, with five riders. Kirchen and Evans were on their own, while Riccò had two teammates and Menchov a single lieutenant.
Cancellara finally clocked out and dropped back, leaving Voigt at the sharp point of the chase. Then Voigt, too, faded out of the chase, followed by Andy Schleck.
And then, as Di Gregorio was caught and dropped, Piepoli and Frank Schleck moved to the front to continue the pressure, putting Kirchen into difficulty.
Sastre tried an attack, which went nowhere. And then Bernhard Kohl (Gerolsteiner) put in a dig, and Evans cracked, as did Sastre. Next to jump was Frank Schleck, followed by Piepoli and Vladimir Efimkin (Ag2r).
Behind, things were getting worse for Valverde — he dropped his chain as the leaders hit the 10km-to-go mark. The yellow jersey, too, was losing ground, nearly a minute behind the group containing the other favorites.
Efimkin, meanwhile, couldn’t hold the pace and fell back, leaving Schleck, Piepoli, Bernhard Kohl (Gerolsteiner) and Juan José Cobo (Saunier Duval-Scott) out front. Kirchen struggled back up to the other favorites, but then Evans cranked up the volume and distanced him once again.
Fighting for the stage and the overall
With 6km to race, the lead group was down to Schleck, Piepoli and Cobo, who was throwing most of the punches. Behind, Riccò and Menchov tried digs, and Vande Velde briefly showed signs of fatigue, drifting to the rear of the chase.
Up front, Cobo dropped Piepoli and Schleck and set off alone toward the finish. But he couldn’t hold the gap — his teammate and the CSC man gradually worked their way back up to the Spaniard and once again it was a threesome up front.
With 3km to go, Kirchen was falling further behind, nearly three minutes back of the lead trio and a minute behind the Evans group, while Valverde’s GC hopes likewise were crumbling.
Then, finally, Schleck cracked and the Saunier Duval combo left him behind, heading toward a one-two finish atop Hautacam, with Piepoli first over the line.
"After the Giro I had a hard time getting back, and was really unhappy at having to abandon," added Piepoli. "So winning here at Hautacam is beyond belief. Our team showed that they were the strongest today."
A weary Schleck followed the Saunier Duval duo for third at 28 seconds as behind, Evans and Menchov fought to limit their losses to the Luxembourger.
That hard work paid off for the Aussie — as Riccò led the favorites across at 2:18, Evans was rewarded with the yellow jersey by a single second over Schleck, with Vande Velde third at 38 seconds. Kohl rode into fourth overall and was ecstatic: "I'm in dreamland. I knew I had great form but I didn't think I would find myself up there." Kirchen, meanwhile, finished more than four minutes behind Piepoli and conceded three-plus minutes to Evans, while Valverde crossed more than five minutes off the winner’s pace and slid to 14th overall at 4:41.
The battle over; the war continues
Although he cites Luxembourg national champion Schleck as a big threat, Evans says he will also have to keep an eye on Menchov, who is fifth overall at 57 seconds.
"It's going to be difficult. We don't have the strongest team in the race but we just have to be satisfied with what we did today — and we'll give it (the rest of the race) some thought tomorrow," said Evans.
"Frank Schleck is my closest rival so I think he'll be the biggest threat for now. But Menchov, for me, is one of the strongest in the top 10 over a three-week race."
As for Schleck, whose attack on the Hautacam left younger brother Andy struggling and virtually out of contention at 8:34 behind Evans, said: "I'm disappointed not to take the yellow jersey, but the Tour is far from finished."
Vande Velde, meanwhile, was still coming to terms with the thought of sitting third overall.
"I felt good on the climb,” said Vande Velde. “I didn’t go beyond my limit at all. I was able to stay with those guys pretty easily. There were a lot of attacks in that group and we didn’t work together at all.
“Today was my best chance for the yellow jersey. I gave it a little run in the final 800 meters, but Evans was with me. The biggest surprise right now is that I am in third overall. Who knows what can happen now? I am saving everything for that final time trial.
"From now on everyone's going to be playing off each other. This is not the top 10 that I would have expected by this stage of the race. I didn't expect Valverde to be this far back. It's going to make for an interesting Tour."
Indeed, Valverde had arguably his worst day on the Tour de France. The 28-year-old tried to play down the setback, but admitted the team would no longer be focusing on the yellow jersey.
"It wasn't one of our best days in the race, but we can't say it was a disaster either," he said. "There's still a long way to go to Paris but I think from today we should go out and look for stage wins and not focus on the yellow jersey." —European correspondent Andrew Hood and Agence France Presse contributed to this story.
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