Tour de France 2025

A teams' protest over the banning of race radios for the 10th stage of the Tour de France failed to prompt any kind of protest before the start on Tuesday. Organizers, following agreement with the International Cycling Union (UCI), have banned the all-important race radios which allow team managers to talk to their riders throughout the race for two stages this year. Fourteen of the race's 20 teams launched a protest, however Tour organizers and the UCI have stood firm and so far refused offers of a compromise. The banning of race radios on stage 13, however, is still up in the air.

The concept of looking for allies with common goals in the tactical minefield of cycling's big stage races is not new, and can be a fruitful initiative for some. But Australian Cadel Evans has so far seen little evidence that he will be helped to beat the mighty Astana team of Alberto Contador and Lance Armstrong by any of his fellow challengers for the Tour de France yellow jersey. Evans resumes racing on the 10th stage Tuesday a day after admitting he has his "work cut out" if he is to try and get back in contention for, never mind win, this year's race.

Defending Tour champion Carlos Sastre said Monday he would be choosing his moments carefully when the Tour de France moves up a gear next week in the Alps. "Astana are the strongest team in the race at the moment, and when it comes to the Alps next week it is up to us (rivals) to react to whatever they decide to do," Sastre said Monday on the race's first rest day. The deficits of Astana's direct rivals range from the 1:49 of Luxembourg's Andy Schleck, of Saxo Bank, to the 3:07 held by two-time runner-up Cadel Evans.

As the son of one of cycling's greats, Nicolas Roche knows he has plenty to live up to. And after a tough first nine stages of racing on his Tour de France debut, the France-born Irish national road race champion is not expecting the race to get any easier. Roche, the son of former Tour de France and Giro d'Italia champion Stephen, has spent the past few days in the unexpected position of battling to keep teammate Rinaldo Nocentini in the race's yellow jersey.

Lance Armstrong's impressive form on this year's Tour de France may have taken some people by surprise, but Saxo Bank leader Andy Schleck insisted Monday the American can win an eighth title. The 24-year-old Luxemburger is 1:49 behind Italian yellow jersey holder Rinaldo Nocentini. But Schleck says Armstrong, the seven-time champion who is participating for the first time since retiring in 2005, can win the Tour - and ominously for his rivals - is getting stronger.

Michael Rogers dropped his chain off the small chainring in the stage one time trial, not once, but twice, forcing him to dismount and put it back on. He was on a Scott Plasma3, as were all his teammates, and he was using a Shimano Dura Ace Di2 grouppo, the same as on all the team TT bikes. What went wrong? According to team mechanic Perry Moerman, a relatively last-minute equipment change, compounded by the nature of Di2 front shifting, conspired to cause the problem. Normally, Di2 is set up and programmed to shift perfectly between a 53- and a 39-tooth chainring.

While Alberto Contador was being grilled by a 250-strong media throng at the Novotel Limoges on Monday afternoon, a small group of six reporters sat around a table with Brad Wiggins at the Campanile hotel barely 500 meters away. And that’s how the lean, long Brit likes it: no pressure, having fun. You wouldn’t know he’s in fifth overall, the closest challenger to Contador’s (and Lance Armstrong’s) Astana team, and sitting only seven seconds behind fourth-placed Levi Leipheimer.

I love rest days! Nothing feels quite as luxurious as spending an entire day lying around doing nothing after nine days of racing. I have been trying to make the most (or maybe I should say the least) of my day off. A little spin in the morning to loosen up the legs and then a lot of time getting acquainted with my bed. I'm sure it's going to be game on from kilometer zero again tomorrow, so I need all the recovery I can get!

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Alberto Contador said Monday if the tables are turned in the Alps, he would not chase down an attacking Lance Armstrong in a solo move. The Spanish climber suggested he would adhere to the cycling code that says never chase down an attacking teammate on a summit finish, opening the door for the next round in the struggle for team leadership at the Astana squad. “If we arrive to a mountain stage and Lance attacks, I will not follow him,” Contador said when asked by VeloNews at a rest-day press conference. “There are other riders who have to chase him down.”

Yellow jersey contender Cadel Evans is clinging on to the hope that he will resurrect his Tour de France bid at the end of this week when the race heads back into the mountains. But Evans, who after nine of the race's 21 stages is three minutes behind main rivals Alberto Contador and Lance Armstrong, admits it will be hard to find a way around the mighty Astana team. "We had some bad luck in the team time time trial that has put me in a frustrating position in the general classification," said Evans on Monday on the race's rest day.

As the Tour de France wraps up its first week of racing on the lower slopes of the Pyrénées, it seems the racing action among the general classification favorites has been put on hold for a while. Stages 8 and 9 had similar scripts — allow a lead break of non-GC contenders to escape, race the major Category 1 climbs at a cautious pace, and limit all losses.

Columbia-HTC sport director Ralf Aldag is content with the opening week of the 2009 Tour de France. Two stage victories by Mark Cavendish and runs in the green and white jerseys bode well for the U.S.-registered team heading into the last two weeks of the race. The team took stock on Monday’s rest day as it prepares to head toward the Alps with all options on the table. While the team’s GC hopes have taken a blow, the team is quietly optimistic Kim Kirchen will find his best form in the decisive final week.

The ongoing debate over the use of radios between riders and team directors will take center stage at the Tour de France on Tuesday’s stage from Limoges to Issoudon. In response to the chorus of complaints that the rise of race radios has made the sport too predictable and formulaic, Tour organizers Amaury Sports Organisation asked the UCI management committee to agree to a directive banning radios on two stages, meaning virtual radio silence for both Tuesday and again on Friday's 200km route from Vittel to Colmar.

Spain's two-time Formula One world champion Fernando Alonso is planning to create a cycling team headed by his compatriot Alberto Contador, the 2007 Tour de France winner, a Spanish newspaper reported on Monday. According to a report in the sports daily Marca, Alonso has already discussed the project with Contador. Contador, however, brushed off the story as speculative. "I only want to focus on the Tour de France, I will talk about my future after that," said the Astana team leader. "This is only a rumor and I have a contract with Astana for another year."

There's always something going on at the Tour de France, even on days when the GC contenders call a truce, and none of it escapes the long lens of our man Casey B. Gibson.

Lance Armstrong conceded on French television Sunday that “there’s a little tension” between himself and Astana teammate Alberto Contador. The seven-time Tour champion sits in third overall, eight seconds behind Rinaldo Nocentini (Ag2r), who is not considered a yellow jersey contender. Contador, the 2007 champion, is in the runner-up spot at six seconds back. As their rivals look for ways to close deficits incurred in a thrilling first week, it seems the real battle for supremacy may be taking place in one team.

When the first phase of the 96th Tour de France ended on Sunday with a near 80-man field sprint (on a mountain stage!), we knew that the race leaders were already looking ahead to the final week. They all know that the stages in the Alps, followed by a time trial at Annecy and the penultimate day’s finish on Mont Ventoux, are going to decide this Tour’s outcome — and that the middle week between Monday’s rest day in Limoges and next Sunday’s stage 15 finish in Verbier, Switzerland, is just a period in which to tick things over.

Lance Armstrong on Sunday backed a protest by 15 of the 20 teams in this year’s Tour de France teams over plans to ban radio contact between riders and their team managers on two of next week's stages. Armstrong's Astana team is one of 15 to have signed the petition against radio silence for stages 10 and 13, which was submitted on Saturday; French outfit Cofidis added its riders’ signatures on Sunday. "I don't agree with it (the radio ban)," said seven-times Tour winner Armstrong.

Lance Armstrong believes six days of hard climbing will reveal whether he, or teammate Alberto Contador, will emerge as Astana's real yellow jersey contender in the Tour de France. Heading into stage 9 Sunday, seven-time champion Armstrong was only two seconds behind 2007 winner Contador in the race's overall classification. With another two teammates, Levi Leipheimer and Andreas Klöden, in the top ten, Astana will be the team to beat when the race heads towards the Vosges and Alps mountains next week.

This year’s Tour de France is laid out so strangely that even though two of the toughest Pyrenean climbs, the Aspin and Tourmalet, are included in Sunday’s stage 9 they will be virtually marginalized. That’s because from the top of the Tourmalet — the most difficult climb in the Tour’s first two weeks — to the finish in Tarbes is a yawningly long 70 kilometers. So any contenders who make a move on the hors-catégorie mountain and gain even as much as three minutes are sure to be caught — unless something extraordinary occurs.

Olympic pursuit king Bradley Wiggins has moved to end doubts surrounding his superb form on the Tour de France by insisting his performances are not drugs-related. The Garmin-Slipstream rider started and finished the eighth stage of the race Saturday in fifth place overall at 46 seconds behind overnight race leader Rinaldo Nocentini (Ag2r-La Mondiale), who is being trailed by Astana teammates Alberto Contador and Lance Armstrong. As part of a team aiming to put Christian Vande Velde into race contention after his fifth place finish last year, Wiggins has so far stolen most of the

Cadel Evans just can’t catch a break in this Tour de France, even when he tries to break away. To the surprise of many, the two-time Tour runner-up went on a daring, potentially dangerous attack on the first climb up the Cat. 1 Port d’Envalira in the opening 23km of Saturday’s 176.5km eighth stage from Andorra to Saint-Girons. But instead of riding away from his rivals and bouncing back into contention, all he caught was grief.

After a brief foray into Spain and Andorra, the Tour de France has returned home. Photographer Casey Gibson was there for stage 8.

Top Tour de France teams will protest plans to ban radio contact between riders and their team managers on two of next week's stages. Johan Bruyneel, the team manager of Astana which includes yellow jersey favorites Alberto Contador, Lance Armstrong and Levi Leipheimer, has described the decision as "unjustified and unacceptable". Astana is one of 14 teams who have already signed a petition against radio silence for stages 10 and 13 and will submit it later Saturday.

Stage 7 between Barcelona and Arcalis in Andorra was the first major test of the Tour de France, and would ultimately show who had arrived in Spain prepared to fight to the end in Paris. Even though there are still many more category 1 and hors category climbs to be raced in this year’s Tour, Arcalis was the first major obstacle.

Until reaching Barcelona and heading for the Pyrénées, the first six days of the Tour de France were held in hot weather. Road races in the heat present challenges for riders and staff in terms of hydration and electrolyte supplementation. But because “warming up” for the race usually happens in the first few kilometers, overheating isn’t a factor.

Alberto Contador just couldn’t help himself on the beyond-category steeps of the Arcalis summit high in the Pyrénées in Friday’s seventh stage. The 26-year-old is a natural born climber and, when he sees a road turn uphill, he’s going to do one thing: attack, even if that means attacking Astana teammate Lance Armstrong and defying team orders. “There were no instructions from the car (to attack),” said Astana team boss Johan Bruyneel. “We wanted to try to maintain our collective strength and wait for the attacks to come. Those attacks didn’t come.”

Just five teams are still in contention to deliver the winner of this excruciatingly tense 96th Tour de France. And these five do not include Ag2r-La Mondiale, the French team of the new race leader Rinaldo Nocentini. He was far from being the strongest man in Friday’s successful long-shot breakaway and he will certainly fall back into the ranks on Saturday.

After a spectacular morning start in downtown Barcelona, the Tour de France moved into the even more spectacular Pyrenees. Casey Gibson was there to follow all of the action

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Two Tour de France rookies on opposite ends of their careers hogged the spotlight Friday in the Pyrénées. While the GC favorites marked each other up the Tour’s first of three summit finishes, Brice Feillu and Rinaldo Nocentini took full advantage of the opportunity. Feillu, 23, best-known as the younger brother of sprinter Romain Feillu, attacked out of a nine-man breakaway to win France’s second stage in three days while Nocentini, 31, an Italian roulleur familiar to American fans for his stage victory during this year’s Tour of California, snagged the yellow jersey.

It usually takes a highly-publicized doping scandal to bring Tour de France chief Christian Prudhomme to the brink of tears. But on Friday it was 24-year-old debutant Brice Feillu, giving the hosts their second stage victory of the race, who brought the emotions flooding out after an impressive ride to victory on the first day in the mountains. Feillu, a specialist climber who rides for Agritubel with his brother Romain, took his chance by attacking his small group of breakaway companions inside the final 6km of the 10.1km climb to Arcalis.

A soaked but otherwise happy Cadel Evans indicated he is ready to meet his Tour de France rivals head on when the race heads for its first summit finish in the Pyrenees on Friday. However Australia's two-time runner-up faces a bigger test than the slippery roads which led the peloton from Girona to Barcelona on Thursday, on which compatriot Michael Rogers almost saw his Tour end prematurely. Evans had joined the frontrunners in pursuit of Garmin-Slipstream's David Millar, who was caught inside two kilometers, having attacked solo a three-man breakaway with 29km to race.

Stage 5 of the Tour de France was another seaside route along the French coast with brutal crosswinds. However, unlike stage 3, Team Saxo Bank and Chris Anker Sorensen were prepared and present at the front of the race when it counted. The final 50 miles of the stage were raced at full throttle and Chris set new personal-best Tour de France power records to prove it. 

Germany's Tony Martin is hoping toemulate compatriot Jan Ullrich by wearing the Tour de France's white jersey all the way to Paris as he prepares to defend it through the Pyrenees this weekend. The 24-year-old Columbia rider has held the prize for the best placed U25 rider since the end of Monday's third stage, and finished Thursday's 181.5km race into Barcelona with the shirt still on his back. Martin, whose parents fled Hungary in 1989 after the fall of the Iron Curtain and settled in the former East German city of Cottbus, has spent the

And it all comes down to Arcalis. After months of speculation, mind-games and maneuvering, the much-anticipated showdown between Lance Armstrong and Alberto Contador will finally unfold on the beyond-category steeps of the Arcalis summit in the principality of Andorra. Or will it? It’s all but impossible to read the tea leaves on what will happen in Friday’s 224km seventh stage.

There have been very few “down” moments in this 96th Tour de France. All of the first six stages have thrown different challenges at the 180 starters, and it’s a testament to today’s breed of pro cyclists that only three of them have so far dropped out — and all due to crashes.

It should come as a surprise to no one that Garmin-Slipstream’s David Millar went out on the attack on Thursday’s stage from Girona to Barcelona.

Photographer Casey Gibson was there when the Tour de France left Girona and at the finish when Cervélo’s Thor Hushovd takes a big win in Barcelona, capital city of Spain's Catalonia region.

Thor Hushovd’s sprint victory up Montjuic gave a huge boost to the start-up Cervélo TestTeam just as the continental squad prepares to lead defending champion Carlos Sastre into the Pyrénées starting with Friday’s stage to Arcalis. The sprinting Viking out-kicked three-time world champion Oscar Freire to claim his seventh career Tour stage win and deliver the Canadian-sponsored continental team a prestigious victory in its first-ever Tour de France.

Rabobank's Denis Menchov saw his yellow jersey hopes all but evaporate in the rain of Barcelona where he ended the sixth stage of the Tour de France nearly five minutes in arrears. Menchov, the recent Giro d'Italia champion who began this year's Tour as a contender, is now 4:54 behind race leader Fabian Cancellara after Thursday's 181.5km crash-marred ride to Barcelona. Cancellara's grip on the yellow jersey could loosen on Friday's seventh stage which heads up to Andorra in the Pyrenees, where Lance Armstrong, only 0.22secs behind in second place, could be the man to replace him.

Australian Michael Rogers was among the big name riders who crashed on the rain-hit sixth stage of the Tour de France on Thursday. Rogers, riding for the Columbia team, appeared to take down Cervelo sprinter Heinrich Haussler and American David Zabriskie of Garmin as the peloton negotiated a roundabout. The Australian, who finished ninth overall in 2006 but had to abandon after a serious crash on the eighth stage in 2007, was later taken to hospital for X-rays complaining of a sore elbow.

Tour stages tend to follow a pretty established routine at the start. Riders arrive in team busses, which park in a fenced-off paddock with direct access to the start line. Bikes, both those that will be used in the race and spares, arrive on the roof racks of team cars. There are usually four or five team vehicles in total. The mechanics who ride in the team cars with spare wheels are on hand at the start, but the trucks with most of the spare parts, wheels, and shop supplies drive directly to the team hotel at the stage finish.

Australian Michael Rogers will head into the sixth stage of the Tour de France on Thursday fully expecting the battle for the yellow jersey to soon move up a gear. But while Columbia's second-in-command has for now played down his own chances of challenging for the yellow jersey, he does not expect Lance Armstrong's Astana team to try and distance their main rivals just yet. "Of course they're in an ideal position right now. They have cards to play but I don't think they'll play them until the later half of the second week," Rogers told AFP on Wednesday.

Mark Cavendish's domination of the Tour de France bunch sprints is likely set to come to an end, temporarily at least, on the race's sixth stage which ends at Barcelona's Olympic stadium on Thursday. A day before the first summit finish of the race at Arcalis in Andorra, the Tour heads over more challenging undulating terrain, with an uphill finish likely tempting the peloton's 'punchers.'

Reigning Tour de France champion Carlos Sastre has put a positive spin on Cervelo's chances of defending his yellow jersey, claiming they would now employ a "happy, relaxed" approach. Sastre was one of several Tour contenders who on Tuesday's team time trial lost time to the Astana team of Lance Armstrong, who is now second overall just 0.22secs behind race leader Fabian Cancellara. Sastre's team finished a respectable eighth in the fourth stage race against the clock and, compared to fellow challengers Cadel Evans and Denis Menchov, Sastre's Cervelo team managed to limit their losses.

Cadel Evans admitted Wednesday he is still getting used to being so far behind in the race for the Tour de France yellow jersey before the race's crucia mountains stages have even started. Australia's two-time runner-up stayed out of trouble on Wednesday's tricky and wind-hit stage from Cap d'Agde to Perpignan, in which Silence teammate Matthew Lloyd escaped, unhurt, from a spill mid-race. Evans now goes into Thursday's sixth stage from Gerona to Barecelona in Spain 2:59 down on race leader Fabian Cancellara and second-placed Lance Armstrong.

Fabian Cancellara’s yellow jersey might be hanging by a thread, but it’s going to take more than a snip of scissors to take it away from him. Despite leading Lance Armstrong by just 0.22 seconds, Cancellara says that margin will be plenty to fend off the seven-time champion on the hilltop finish atop Montjuic overlooking Barcelona in Thursday’s stage 6.

Sharp eyes might have noticed unfamiliar helmets on the heads of certain riders in Tuesday’s team time trial. At the start line, we spotted riders from the Astana and Garmin teams with new Giro-branded helmets. The Saxo Bank team, which is sponsored by Bell, also had new helmets, including a yellow one for Fabian Cancellara to match his leader’s jersey. Reportedly, other teams sponsored by Giro (including Rabobank and Caisse d’Epargne) are also wearing this new helmet in time trials.

Julian Dean says it’s only a matter of time before Tyler Farrar wins a stage at the Tour de France. The New Zealand veteran sprinter said Farrar might just be the man who gets past dominant sprinter Mark Cavendish. “I think he can win a stage at the Tour,” Dean said after Wednesday’s stage. “It won’t be easy. We just started working together at the Giro, but if we get our timing right, we can win.”

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Covering a 200km stage across the wind-blown reaches of southern France means that some days you have to get lucky to get the right shot. Photographer Casey Gibson seemed to have a good day today.

Columba-HTC's Mark Cavendish tightened his grip on the Tour de France green jersey on Wednesday despite losing out on the chance to claim a third stage victory on this year's race. Cavendish, who stylishly won stages 2 and 3 from bunch sprints to take his tally on the race to six in three participations, was among those who fell victim to a vicious headwind as the peloton chased down an earlier breakaway.

Just a day after publicly apologizing for comments he made about the 2008 Tour de France winner, Lance Armstrong told Carlos Sastre face-to-face he was sorry. On Wednesday, as Sastre rolled through the peloton during the neutral start congratulating members of the Astana team on their team time trial victory, Armstrong saddled up alongside. According to Sastre, the seven-time Tour champ told him he was sorry that he said the 2008 Tour was “a joke.”

The teams of Tour de France contenders Cadel Evans and Denis Menchov suffered further setbacks during the race's fifth stage on Wednesday. On the descent of the Cote de Treilles as the peloton upped the pace in chase of a six-man breakaway, 23-year-old Dutchman Robert Gesink crashed and picked up injuries to his wrist and left leg. He was later diagnosed with a fractured wrist and pulled out of the race by his Rabobank team, who have been left reeling with the relative demise of their yellow jersey contender Menchov.

Wow, what an exciting day of racing. There are simply no easy days in the Tour de France. On paper, Monday's stage 3 appeared to be a fairly routine flat stage for the sprinters, but it ended up being a detrimental day for some of the Tour’s overall favorites.

Lance Armstrong has an eighth Tour de France crown within his sights thanks to Astana’s domination in Tuesday’s team time trial, but he admitted that it won’t be easy. After barnstorming to seven straight Tour victories before retiring in 2005, Armstrong acknowledged Tuesday that trying to win for an unprecedented eighth time is more difficult than he expected.I was disrespectful, to Carlos Sastre, to Christian Vande Velde.

Until the very final meter of Tuesday’s 39km team time trial in Montpellier it looked as though Lance Armstrong was going to grab the yellow jersey from Fabian Cancellara. That he didn’t take it may have disappointed those Armstrong fans looking for a Hollywood ending to a day that had already delivered so much. But those who support the Texan should be thrilled that his Astana team won the stage — four years after Armstrong last led a Tour team to a TTT victory — before even thinking about his not taking the jersey.

Fabian Cancellara held on to the yellow jersey by the slimmest of margins on Tuesday. Photographer Casey B. Gibson was there to capture the moment ... and a few more.

Alberto Contador was all smiles at the finish line in Montpellier after Astana’s dramatic team time trial win. And why not? The 2007 Tour champ had plenty of reason to be happy. The team not only won the stage, but Contador profits from the major time gaps opened up to rivals even before the race turns into the Pyrénées. “I have every reason to be happy. We took some time on our rivals, riders like Evans, Sastre, Menchov and the Schleck brothers,” Contador said. “Things are looking pretty good for us on the GC.”

For a working journalist, the Tour de France isn't exactly a day at the beach, even when it finishes at one. But when race security supplies a few extra obstacles, our man Casey B. Gibson manages to clear them with ease, two-ton camera bag and all. Here's what he shot.

Bob Stapleton was already in a good mood Monday morning before the start of the third stage of the 2009 Tour de France at Marseille’s old harbor. The president of Columbia-HTC was enjoying the warm afterglow of Mark Cavendish’s explosive victory in stage 2 and Andre Greipel’s win at the Tour of Austria.

Fabian Cancellara saved his yellow jersey Monday by slipping into the stage-breaking attack powered by the entire Columbia-HTC team. The Saxo Bank rider was the only one from his favored team to be in the decisive, 28-man breakaway featuring Lance Armstrong (Astana) but not second-place rider Alberto Contador. Cancellara came across the line sixth and actually widened his lead, from 19 seconds over Contador to 33 seconds over Tony Martin (Columbia-HTC), with Armstrong climbing to third at 40 seconds back.

George Hincapie should know. He called Monday’s amazing collective performance by his Columbia-HTC team as the greatest he’d been associated with. And that’s saying something when you consider that the American veteran was on all seven of Lance Armstrong’s winning Tour de France campaigns.

Naysayers will be quick to point out that Lance Armstrong’s presence in and Alberto Contador’s absence from Monday’s decisive 28-man breakaway is all the proof they need that the Texan is riding against the Spaniard in the 2009 Tour de France. Calmer heads might suggest that experience ruled the day when Armstrong followed Columbia-HTC into the biting crosswinds across France’s Camargue and bounced from 10th to third overall, now 40 seconds behind overnight leader Fabian Cancellara (Saxo Bank). Armstrong insists he was just riding smart.

Lance Armstrong's Astana team was fined on Monday after failing to sign on within the specified time at the start of the third stage of the Tour de France. Heavy traffic in Marseille city centre meant Astana broke the organizers' rule that teams must register for the stage at least 20 minutes before the start of the race. The Kazakhstan-backed cycling team have been fined 65 euros for the infringement. "How typical that this team were late. It is disrespectful to the public who came here just to see Armstrong," said race director Jean-Francois Pescheux.

Katusha's Danilo Napolitano hit back Monday at allegations that his race tactics prevented team Cervelo from pulling off a sprint coup on the second stage of the Tour de France. Cervelo's Brett Lancaster, the main lead-out man for the team's Norwegian sprinter Thor Hushovd, was left frustrated and angry Sunday with what he called the "amateur' racing of Katusha sprinter Napolitano. "We got Thor right up there and then typical Napolitano just smashing people like he's in an amateur bloody under-19 race. It's just disgraceful," Lancaster told AFP. "The guy needs to pull his head in."

Quick Step rider Jurgen van de Walle on Monday became the first cyclist to withdraw from the 2009 Tour de France after suffering a broken collarbone on the second stage. The 32-year-old was involved in a crash just under two kilometers from the finish of Sunday's second, 187km-long stage between Monaco and Brignoles which left him with the broken collarbone and a damaged lung. The Belgian finished the stage, but was taken straight to hospital in Marseille where he was being kept under observation.

Belgium's Tom Boonen said Sunday he was more concerned about staying on his bike than sprinting for victory after a crash just before the finish of the second stage of the Tour de France. A right-hand bend just under 2km before the end of the 187km stage between Monaco and Brignoles caused confusion in the peloton, causing some riders to crash and forcing the Quick Step sprinter to ride around the pileup.

Tyler Farrar stuck another feather in his sprint cap on Sunday by finishing an impressive second on his first real Tour de France debut. The Tour de France clicked into action on Saturday when Olympic champion Fabian Cancellara grabbed the race's yellow jersey when he won the opening stage time trial in Monaco. But for sprinters like Farrar, who as an American is a rare breed in his craft, Sunday's hot and sweaty 187 km ride from Monaco to here was the real start of the three-week epic.

The road back to his second Tour de France was different for Ryder Hesjedal this year. While most of his Tour-bound teammates followed the successful blueprint from 2008 and raced the Giro d’Italia in May, Garmin-Slipstream brass put the brakes on the tall Canadian and told him to rest instead of race.