The French regained the lead of the Tour de France for the first time since 2004 as Cyril Dessel, left, joined a breakaway on the first climb of the day and jumped from 28th place and into the yellow jersey.
T-Mobile working at the head of the peloton for the first time in what, seven years, was torn between helping its yellow jersey teammate Serhiy Honchar and limiting damage to two or three other team members in the top 10 — namely Michael Rogers and Andreas Kloden.
This is what happens in the Pyrenees when no dominating cyclists are left onboard. Cyclists like Dessel (AG2R) and Juan Mercado (Agritubel) — who won the stage in a sprint against Dessel — can get together and completely blow apart the peloton and the standings.
In spite of Discovery team manager Johan Bruyneel's pronouncement that his team would attack on Wednesday, the team of American George Hincapie, Paolo Savoldelli and Yaroslav Popovych was relatively quiet.
Discovery came to the front on the last climb with Floyd Landis' Phonak team in a half-hearted attempt to help T-Mobile in the chase. Later, T-Mobile took up the chase on its own.
In addition to Honchar, who cracked on both of the big climbs, American Levi Leipheimer dropped off the back of the main group on the 2nd climb, Col de Marie Blanque. Iban Mayo dropped back on the first big ascent up Col de Soudet.
In the first half of the Tour, the leaders so far: Thor Hushovd, George Hincapie, Tom Boonen, Serhiy Honchar, and now Cyril Dessel. He's the first Frenchman to wear the yellow jersey since Thomas Voeckler in 2004.
The leading American in the race, Landis, dropped from 2nd place to 5th, 4 minutes and 45 seconds behind the leader.
The Top 10 are:
1. Cyril Dessel (Fra), AG2R
2. Juan Mercado (Spain), Agributel, 2:34 behind
3. Serhiy Honchar (Ukr), T-Mobile, 3:45
4. Cristian Moreni (Ita), Cofidis, 3:51
5. Floyd Landis (US), Phonak, 4:45
6. Michael Rogers (Aus), T-Mobile, 4:53
7. Inigo Landaluze (Spa), Euskaltel, 5:22
8. Patrik Sinkewitz (Ger), T-Mobile, 5:30
9. Andreas Kloden (Ger), T-Mobile, 5:35
10. Vladimir Karpets (Rus), Caisse d'Epargne, 5:37
Among the US riders remaining the the Tour de France:
5. Floyd Landis (Phonak), 4:45
12. David Zabriskie (CSC), 5:38
19. George Hincapie (Discovery), 6:15
23. Christian Vandevelde (CSC), 7:10
58. Levi Leipheimer (Gerolsteiner), 10:28
84. Chris Horner (Davitamon-Lotto), 16:04
Full results at CyclingNews or VeloNews.
More changes could be in store on Thursday, as the peloton faces 128 more miles in the Pyrenees from Tarbes to Val d'Aran with 1 “beyond category” climb and 4 1st category climbs — the last one a mountaintop finish in Val D'Aran, Spain.
In years past, if Lance Armstrong had a 2:34 lead at this point, it was time for the other teams to pull up stakes and start going for stage wins, or work to put their guy in 2nd or 3rd.
Not this year. Dessel, racing in his second Tour de France, was brought onto AG2R to support its favorite, Francisco Mancebo, who was expelled from the Tour as one of the cyclists questioned in the drug probe. Dessel might have a lot of fight left in him, but he'll certainly be challenged by a host of riders on Thursday.
(For those of you playing at home, OLN's Stage 11 coverage begins at 6:30 a.m. (ET) Thursday, that's 3:30 out here on the West Coast.)
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