The first rest day of the 2010 Tour gave the riders a chance to warm down and relax on what was one of the hottest Tours in recent memory. Despite it being a day off, most of the riders will complete a long training run, probably up and down a mountain. Meanwhile, the journalists were working on Armstrong's Tour obituary. The seven times winner lies too far off the pace to be a serious threat to the leaders. Indeed, he may now be working to see one of his teammates on the podium in his place.

The race leader is Cadel Evans, the Australian from the BMC Racing Team has covered the 1569.4km so far in 37 hours, 57 minutes and 9 seconds. He leads the young rider from Luxembourg, Andy Schleck, by twenty seconds. Last year's winner, the Spaniard Alberto Contador, is 61 seconds back. Evans' former helper, Jurgen van den Broeck, riding for the Omega Pharma – Lotto team is a further two seconds back. Denis Menchov, having missed the Giro this year, is looking in good form and is only 70 seconds off the lead.

Ryder Hesjedal, the Canadian on the Garmin – Transitions Squad sits just outside the Top 5, only 1'11" back. Armstrong's teammate, Levi Leipheimer, is eighth, the American sits 2'14" back. In twelfth place is the 2008 winner, Carlos Sastre at 2'40". The Giro Champion, Ivan Basso, is just one second and one place behind him, Bradley Wiggins is hanging on to fourteenth place, another four seconds back. Andréas Klöden is not having a great Tour and sits in 21st place, having already lost 5'39" to the leader. Twice stage winner and former Yellow Jersey holder Sylvain Chavanel is 32nd and over ten minutes back. Armstrong lies in 39th position, 13'26" back. The first yellow Jersey holder of the Tour, Fabian Cancellara, is 89th, already 41'39 behind Evans.

36 people are eligible for the White Jersey of the Best Young Rider. Andy Schleck is leading this ahead of Liquigas's Roman Kreuzinger and Rabobank's Robert Gesink.

Quick Step have the top two places in the King of the Mountains competition with Jérôme Pineau on 44 points ahead of Sylvain Chavanel on 36. Andy Schleck has 30 points.

Over the past few days, the green Jersey competition has been quiet, with Thor Hushovd on 118 points ahead of Alessandro Petacchi (114) and Robbie McEwen (105). Mark Cavendish is on 85 points, a long way behind despite having won as many stages as Petacchi.

The Team award is based on the times of the first three riders from each team over the line each day. Rabobank lead this with a time of 113 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds. They are just 10 seconds ahead of Astana with Radioshack in third, 2' 53" down.

Stage 9 – Tuesday 13 July

Morzine-Avoriaz – Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne 204.5km

Often, some riders do not ride well on the day after a rest day. With high temperatures and alpine roads, this was not a day to be out of form. It featured five categorised climbs, including the first of the hardest HC climbs. There would be 66km of climbing in the day, the most in any stage this year.

Today was to be spent in the Haute-Savoie, moving into the Savoie. 2010 marks 150 years since the Duchy of Savoy was annexed by France. The riders leave from another part of the Avoriaz resort before climbing through the village of Les Gets again. They drop down the mountain, with a short break of the Category 4 climb of Côte de Châtillion. They run though a sprint point at Cluses, the hometown of French Former Yellow Jersey wearer, Charly Mottet. From this village's height of 500 meters, they climb for the next 21 kilometres. The last 16km, which averages out to 6.7% gradient is the Col de la Colombière, a category 1 climb that tops out at 1618m. The next climb is the Category 2 climb of the Col des Aravis. The ascent of this starts pretty much as soon as the descent of the last one finishes. This is the same story for the next climb, the 14.4km of the Col des Saisies, which tops out at 1660m.

The race then drops down into the valley, skirting around the town of Albertville, home of the 1992 Winter Olympics. By coming into the Haute-Savoie, the race is hoping to show support to Annecy's bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics. From an altitude of 375m, the riders are confronted with the hardest climb in the Alps this year. 25.5km of climbing at an average of 6.2%, the Col de la Madeleine tops out at 2000 metres. The summit comes at 32 kilometres to go. From there, the course plunges down into the next valley. The last 13.5 kilometres are a virtually flat run in alongside the Autoroute and the River Arc. The actual finish comes just 35 meters beyond a left turn, it doesn't look like they are expecting a mass sprint here!

The long run down to the finish throws a new factor into the equation for who may win this stage. Looking at it Contador needs to gain a minute of time on Evans. Schleck, although not as far behind, needs even more time on Evans and Contador. He may be the Time Trial Champion of Luxembourg, he is nowhere near as good against the clock as the other two and would need a fair margin going into the final time trial. Climbers like Contador and especially Schleck are not as good going down hills as they are going up. Many of the riders who grew up track or mountain bike racing have much better bike handling skills than the lighter climbers.

The sprinters will most likely try to avoid finishing outside the time limit, while this could be a chance for those riders who faltered badly before the rest day to try and gain back some time.

With start the day with news that the Russian rider Vladmir Karpets has retired. He sustained a broken hand in stage 2 and has struggled on. Karpets was lying 56th in the race at the rest day. Losing a former White Jersey winner and Winner of the Tour of Switzerland has certainly pulled the rug from beneath the feet of his Katusha squad. Their hopes must now lie with trying to get a stage win with either Robbie McEwen or through a breakway.

The intermediate sprints offer points in the Green Jersey competition for the first three riders to cross them. Since breakaways have been going out early and sweeping up the points, the big sprinters have not contested them. Today, Thor Hushovd has managed to get himself into the first main break of the day. The God of Thunder easily collects the sprint prize and then thanks the rest of the breakaway before dropping back to the main field. A bit later in the race, he crashes but is fit to continue.

The main break contains some big names including Luis-Leon Sanchez of Caisse d'Epargne was their along with his teammates José Ivan Gutierrez and Christophe Moreau. Moreau, in this 15th Tour is the oldest man in the race. Pineau was in the break, looking for more King of the Mountains points. BBox were well represented with Anthony Charteau and Cyril Gautier. Sandy Casar was in the group from Française des Jeux . Johannes Fröhlinger was there for Milram. Damiano Cunego of Lampre was looking for some way to justify his prerace hype and Saxo Bank had sent Jens Voigt into the group. Sanchez started the stage some five minutes down and so was the best placed rider in the group.

Pineau led over the first four climbs, adding more points to his King of the Mountains lead. Moreau and Charteau picked up the best of the scraps. As the race headed towards the final climb of the day, the break was over six minutes ahead of the field, making Sanchez the virtual Yellow Jersey.

The Col de la Madeleine was about to cause havoc. In the peloton, two Euskatel riders had crashed into each other. This was the second time in a few days that members of the Basque team had bumped into each other. One would have thought that riding in bright orange colours would make it easy for them to notice each other. Already most of the sprinters had dropped off the back to try and trundle to the finish. With still twenty kilometres to the summit Pineau dropped off the back of the lead group, unable to cope with the pace on the steeper climbs. Caisse d'Epargne had sent three riders up so two could work for Sanchez. Gutierrez did his fair share of pace making on the first ten kilometres of the climb, leaving it for Moreau near the top. Moreau has previously finished fourth in the Tour, but his best days are long behind him, and in fact he had announced on the rest day that his retirement would come at the end of the season.

In the Peloton, Vinokourov attacks and straight away builds himself a small lead. Meanwhile, Mick Rogers of HTC-Columbia, their man for the main classification, drops back from the peloton. 10km further on and Carlos Sastre and Ryder Hesjedal fall away from the rapidly shrinking peloton. Then the Yellow Jersey goes out the back. Cadel Evans's power to hang onto the back wheel of the good climbers had failed him. Astana notice this and increase speed, with Vinokourov back, they split the peloton till only three riders remain. Navarro is pacing Contador up the climb but they cannot get rid of Schleck. Behind them, Sammy Sanchez of Euskatel is trying to climb his way back up. The former Olympic Road Race champion is a good rider, but nobody in the field can match Contador or Schleck's ability to accelerate on a steep climb. Just as Sanchez has about to make contact, Schleck attacks and only Contador can hold on. Time and again Schleck attacks, aware that Contador suffered breathing difficulties into Morzine when trying to hold on.

Briefly Schleck gains support from Voigt who was dropped by the group in front. This was obviously planned in advance, with Saxo Bank having placed Voigt in the break just so he could help Schleck for a few moments on this climb, and that may just be enough. Unknown to Contador, Schleck had used up all his energy and was running on empty as they approached the summit.

If the last climb on a stage is a Category 2, 1 or HC then the King of The Mountains over the summit are doubled. Charteau took 40 points over the top to take over the lead of the King of the Mountains. Cunego, Luis-Leon Sanchez and Sandy Casar were the next three over, all that remains of the front group. Moreau was next over, just caught by Schleck and Contador. Sammy Sanchez followed then over. Voigt had dropped off from Schleck just a hundred or so meters from the summit was only ninth. The next set of favourites rode over the top headed by Robert Gesink.

A tricky descent at the start became easier, and the two great climbers were taking no prisoners on the downhill, racing not only to put time into the rest of the field, but to catch the men ahead. Moreau was hanging on but not really helping. He wanted Luis-Leon Sanchez to get as much time as possible over these men. Sammy Sanchez, an excellent downhill racer, managed to close in to 10 seconds on Contador by the start of the flat run in. Sadly, he'd pretty much cracked on the descent and could not maintain his charge on the flat ground.

At 10 kilometres to go, Contador was 1'26" behind the head of the course, with Sammy Sanchez at 1'47". A group containing Liepheimer was next on the road, with Armstrong in another group at almost four minutes off the leaders. Schleck had obviously got his second wind on the way down and was driving his group on. At 3km to go they were 35 seconds back, but caught 21 of that over the next kilometre. As they passed 1km to go, they turned onto a bridge and the four man leading group were just ahead of them. The catch came at 700 meters to go and seemed to take the group by surprise as they almost turned onto Schleck as he tried to overtake the whole group. This gave them the hurry up. In a sprint for the line, Cunego should have easily won, but he misjudged the finish and Sandy Casar came around the final corner to win. A third stage win for the French. Sanchez was second and Cunego was third.

Moreau, Charteau, Contador then Schleck came over the line; the computers gave them a two second time gap as they had backed off in the last few meters. It would be another fifty seconds before Sammy Sanchez bravely fought his way over the line. Joaquin Rodriguez Oliver led the next group over the line at 2'07", this contained Leipheimer, Gesink, Voigt and Denis Menchov.

The Armstrong group came in at 2'50". It was led over by Kevin De Weert and also contained Ivan Basso and Jurgen van den Broeck amongst others. Kreuziger, Vinokourov and Klöden were in the next group at 3'48".

23rd place went to Ryder Hesjedal who brought in a group at 4'55" back. This contained Nicolas Roche, Carlos Sastre, Bradley Wiggins and Michael Rogers. Evans came in having lost 8 minutes and nine seconds as well as his Yellow Jersey. The Autobus chugged over at 34'57" but these were not the last finishers.

David Millar crossed the line 42 minutes and 45 seconds behind. He was still suffering from the crashes on the second stage. Having broken a few ribs, he was unable to stand up to pedal and was finding it hard to use his left side. He was dropped on the first, small, climb and did 180km on his own, thinking he was either going to abandon or be eliminated. He avoided being eliminated by 5 minutes and vowed to try and reach Paris, talking up his chances in the final time trial.

Millar wasn't the only rider taking on the stage injured. After the first few days, lots were carrying broken bones. Unknown to all though until the end of the stage was that Evans had picked up a broken elbow in the previous stage. Having ridden in pain all day he was in tears at the end of the day as was his Yellow Jersey gone.

The new standings have Schleck leading Contador by 41 seconds. It was the first time a man from Luxembourg had been in yellow since ... his brother! Sammy Sanchez was up to third ahead of Menchov and van den Broeck. Evans was now in 18th place, 7'47" behind. Armstrong was now over fifteen minutes behind Schleck, in 31st.

Schleck was still the leader in the White Jersey competition, but Robert Gesink would have the honour of wearing it for stage 10.

Stage 10 – Wednesday 14 July

Chambéry - Gap 179km

It's Bastille Day on the Tour de France. While most of France takes a holiday, the race carries on under the baking sun. This is the last full day in the Alps and is the easiest. Leaving Chambéry to the south, the race leaves Savoie and enters Isère. There is a sprint point at La Buissiere after 19.5km. The course follows the route of the Isère River until the outskirts of the city of Grenoble. It crosses the Romanche River at Vizille. If they turned left, they would be on the road to Bourg d'Oisans at the bottom of the legendary climb of L'Alpe-d'Huez. Instead they carry on south to the category 1 Côte de Laffrey at 77km gone. This is a 7km climb that averages 9% as it rises from 280m to 886m. The race now stays on a plateau for most of the rest of the day. There is a short drop 10km after the climb, but the category 3 Côte des Terrasses brings them back up. The race now follows the Drac river and the spectacular scenery that surrounds it and its gorges. Much of this section of the race is on the Route Napoleon, going the opposite way from the Corsican dictator when he returned from exile on Elba

At 48km to go, the race enters the Hautes-Alpes. Here is the start of the final categorised climb of the day, the Catagory 2 Col du Noyer. It is 7.4km long and averages 5.3%. The top is at 1,664 metres. The summit comes with 33km to go, but the run down into gap is interrupted by the climb of La Rochette. This isn't categorised, but has its own entry in Tour history. In 2003, Joseba Beloki crashed here, his tyre coming off the wheel rim and sending him hard into the ground. Armstrong was riding just behind. He avoided the crash and rode into a field, somehow finding the bridge in. After riding over the field, he jumped off and leapt with his bike over a ditch and back onto the road. Armstrong's luck, cool head and bike control were epic that day. Beloki suffered a double fracture of the leg amongst other injuries that effectively ended the career of the man who finished 2nd to Armstrong in 2002. The crash happened on a road surface that had partly melted in the heat. The bad news for everybody was that news from the course was that the road surface was so hot, it sounded like riders were cycling through water. Mark Renshaw reported that his bike computer was registering 45 degrees centigrade! From Twitter reports from the riders, it seemed that some of the hotels they had stayed in overnight were only a little cooler.

Still, this is the Tour de France, where no good photo opportunity goes unmarketed, and various opportunist businesses had stuck adverts all over the field, and one had marked the route that Armstrong had taken.

After the battles of the last few days, it was pretty much given that the main contenders of the Tour would not try and challenge each other today. The last climb is not steep enough to launch an attack off that will upset the potential winners. It was also likely that they wanted to give their teams a rest. It was not marked down as a day for the Sprinters and so it was unlikely that the teams of sprinters would chase down breakaways. This would favour those who wanted to go out on the attack. A side note was that Caisse d'Epargne were leading Radioshack by 31 seconds in the team classification. It would be a fair bet that these teams would be marking each other.

Being Bastille Day, we would expect that any attack would have a large compliment of Frenchmen.

After Hushvod's successful sneaking of points in the last stage, Petacchi joined him in the first attack of the day. Whereas Hushvod operated alone, Ali-Jet brought his lead out men along and grabbed max points ahead of the Norseman and McEwen. They all then sank back into the field to let the breakaway go about its businesses.

There are early crashes for Robbie Hunter of Garmin and Yaroslav Popovych of Radioshack. Hunter, the South African lead-out man makes it to the end of the stage, but retires with a broken elbow. Popovych looked unlikely to continue as he struggled to get back onto the bike, but soon rejoined the main field.

The peloton are not just going to let any break get away and they haul one back before Mario Aerts (Omega Pharma – Lotto), Dries Devenyns (Quick Step), Vasil Kiryienka (Caisse d'Epargne), and Sergio Paulinho (Radioshack). That made, in order, two Belgians, one Belarusian and a Portugese. The lead had stretched to 3 minutes 30 before any Frenchmen were spotted. BBox Bouygues Telecom's Pierre Rolland and AG2R's Maxime Bouet managed to bridge the gap to get some Frenchmen into the leading group. The first eight people over the Côte de Laffrey would get points. Aerts led Rolland and Devenyns over. After the leaders had gone over, a small break raced for the last two points places with Jerome Pineau taking 7th place and regaining the Polka-Dot Jersey by one whole point from Anthony Charteau who was 8th. The main break were nine minutes ahead of the peloton now so it was likely that they would stay away and no other climbs would offer points below 6th place. This would leave Pineau in the lead of the King of the Mountains competition.

The plateaus, gorges, mountains and villages that the race passes by made for spectacular viewing even if the racing was not as intense as it had been for the past few days. The race had slowed down so that they were behind even the slowest predicted schedule.

As they passed wind farms and dams that harness the power of water tumbling down from mountains two and three kilometres in the sky, we are reminded that France is one of the world leaders in renewable and non-fossil fuel electricity supply. One then asks the question, despite all the competitors being human powered, is The Tour the least environmentally friendly sporting event in the world? As well as a couple of cars per team, there are medical cars, service cars, referees cars and VIP cars. There are service motorbikes, camera bikes, TV camera bikes, referee's bikes and a time keeper's bike. More than one helicopter is used for taking television pictures and another is relaying them. On top of that, helicopters and private jets ferry in VIPs from Paris every day. The race is preceded everyday by a huge caravan of sponsors and trade vehicles. Every day the start and finish villages are transported by trucks to the location they are needed in, and thousands of journalists, TV crews, photographers, officials, cooks, doctors, helpers and managers are along with the race.

Back in the race, Bouet in his brown AG2R shorts is struggling to keep up with the rest of the break as they come to the top of the Col du Noyer. Once again Aerts grabs the points. This was another descent that looks magnificent on television, as the tight hairpins of the top just have small walls between them and the drop to the valley floor far below. As the peloton comes up, Christophe Moreau leaps off the front. If it was an attempt to grab more points, then he is out of luck, while the points are doubled for it being the last climb, they still only go to the first six across. Moreau, being seventh, doesn't get any points. If this was an attempt to get to the finish and gain more time on the Radioshack team, he was also out of luck as Popovych, seemingly recovered from his crash chased him down. Popovych is being used in the role of Radioshack's enforcer. A few stages ago he yelled at riders who were trying to make light of Armstrong's crash to increase the tempo.

Aerts attacks the group at 15km to go, but aside from dropping the struggling Bouet, it achieves little. Then the other Belgian goes, Devenyns makes what looked briefly like the decisive move but Kiryienka and Sergio Paulinho pass him and quickly build up a 30 second lead. It looks like the stage will between the former Olympic Silver Medallist, Paulinho and the former World Points Champion, Kiryienka. Paulinho hasn't won a mass start race for four years and is against a track racer, but he is more experienced than Kiryienka. The three riders behind have joined forces but it does not look like there will be a French winner today.

Far behind them, the field gets around the hairpin by Lance's field. Nicholas Roche is off the front, he attacked the lethargic field and they let him go.

Coming up to the line, Kiryienka is letting Paulinho follow him up the straight. Kiryienka is looking around, hoping to react to Paulinho's sprint when it comes and to have the legs to beat him in a fair sprint. When it goes, he delays for a fraction too long and despite a track style lunge for the line misses out by the smallest of margins, a quarter of a wheel length. Kiryienka also thinks he has won and has to be shown the awful truth by his manager.

Devenyns beats Rolland for third place, 89 seconds back. Fourth is the best place for France this Bastille Day. Rolland will not like the stage in two days time when we arrive at an aerodrome named after Laurent Jalabert who won there in 1996 on Bastille Day. Rolland will ponder just what the city of Gap could have named after him! Aerts finishes a few seconds further back. Bouet comes over the line three minutes and twenty seconds back.

Roche is the next man to arrive. He was looking to gain a few seconds on the rest of his rivals in General Classification, and hopefully jump up a few places. He came over the like 12'58" behind the winner. Looking back, the main field were still not in sight. Rémi Pauriol of Cofidis had also escaped on the climb and finished a further 59 seconds back, claiming eighth place for France.

Then came the pack at 14'19". While they had not organised themselves for a bit sprint, there were still points up for grabs. Cavendish claimed ninth ahead of Petacchi, Hushovd and McEwen, signalling that he had not given up on the Green Jersey. It was a seeming formality even if he didn't have his lead out train with him.

There was a split after Stuart O'Grady in 120th position. Everybody in the next bunch got given a time of 15'47", losing nearly 90 seconds. If a teammate of Lance Armstrong being allowed to win a stage was a rare event, seeing Armstrong on the wrong side of a big split was another one.

In the end, Armstrong stayed 31st in the race overall, his gap behind the leader stretching to 17'22". The only change near the top was from Roche who leapt above Wiggins, Sastre, Rogers and Vinokourov and into 13th place, now 6'23" behind.

The Green Jersey competition was hotting up. McEwen looked like he was getting back into form and since Petacchi was contesting sprints one the road, it was looking like he was in for the long run to Paris. Cavendish has already said that he won't race for points on the road, but with his competitors going for them would his superior speed be enough? Today, fighting for the minor places, despite beating both Hushovd and Petacchi he lost ground in the Green Jersey competition. Thor was on 138 and Ali-Jet on 131. McEwen was on 116, Rojas on 98 and Cavendish on 97. Turgot of France had finished 6th in the sprint for the minor places today, as well as notching up a few sixth places already on other stages. He was in sixth with 86 points.

Against the God of Thunder, Cavendish could realistically hope that a few riders would finish in between himself and the Norwegian and take away points from him. With Petacchi, this was not anywhere near as likely. It looked like this was a competition that could carry on all the way until Paris.

Stage 11 – Thursday 15 July

Sisteron – Bourg-lés-Valence 184.5km

Today the race says a final au revoir to the Alps. We leave the Gateway to Provence heading North West. Like many of the towns on yesterday's stage, Sisteron is on the Route Napoleon. We leave the department of Alpes-de-Haute-Provence quickly and return to Hautes-Alpes. The first 56 kilometres today are a slow drag up from 485m at Sisteron to 1180m at the top of the Col de Cabre. Only the final 5km actually count as part of this Category 3 climb. From there on it, it is pretty much downhill all the way, into the Drôme, they will pretty much follow the route of the River Drôme until they reach Crest at 49km to go. Here they will turn north and be confronted by the Mistral winds coming straight at them. They will circumnavigate around the city of Valence. At 19km to go, they reach Alixan where they turn west and have to cope with expected sever crosswinds. The last few kilometres into the northern suburb of the city will see the wind at the rider's backs. Aside from a chicane just before the kilometre to go, the final run is pretty simple, with the long straight to the finish on a wide main road.

With only a few more chances to shine before Paris, the sprinters will have marked this stage down as a must win. Cavendish will be looking for win number 3. The main leaders will treat this as a day off, only paying a bit of attention when we get to the windy bits.

Robbie Hunter, a key man in Tylar Farrar's lead out team did not start. Neither did Charlie Wegelius who has been feeling increasingly under the weather.

Today's breakaway stared Anthony Geslin of Française des Jeux , Stephane Augé of Confidis and Jose-Alberto Benitez of Footon. Benitez, like the rest of his team is a first time competitor. He is the best placed of the three riders, but still 90 minutes behind Schleck. Geslin is a sprinter with a couple of wins on his record in his eight years as a pro. Augé has been a bit more successful, and has held the King of the Mountains jersey twice in Tours de France, as well as getting the most competitive rider prize once.

The break's lead stretches to over four minutes by the top of the climb. Benitez is first over, ahead of Augé. With one point for fourth place, Pineau pops out of the main field to double his lead in the King of the Mountains.

Neither the main field nor the breakaway seem to be working very hard at the today. Schleck and Contador were having a chat in the peloton. By 80km to go, the gap to the leaders was down to 1'30" and the main field were just letting them hang there. Having a breakaway discourages anybody else from attacking. The riders in front were not able or not willing to try and increase the gap, and so were willing just to sit there and give their sponsors some airtime.

Once the winds came, the gap shrunk rapidly. They were 25 seconds ahead with 30 kilometres to go and the peloton were doing all they could not to catch them too soon. Geslin gave up first. The other two finally shook hands and called it a day with 23km to go. Team Saxo Bank moved to the front with their powerful crew of riders. They started to speed the peloton up in order to string out the bunch. They knew that Schleck was in close attendance and hoped to push a few of his competitors out the back. A fair few of the Astana riders dropped back, but Vinokourov was making sure that Contador was in a good position.

The speed of the bunch was approaching 60 km/h as they rushed towards Valence, just as anybody in their right mind would towards a city twined with Clacton-on-Sea. Chavanel had obviously heard that local man and cult hero of the French Rugby team Sébastien Chabal was at the finish. The man who had already won two stages of the race launched an attack at 8km to go, hoping to meet Sea-Bass on the podium. Popovych tagged on behind but both were caught within 2 kilometres. The Saxo Bank boys had now left the pace making for the sprinters teams and dropped off the back of the bunch, their job done.

Lampre, HTC-Columbia and Team Sky were all trying to show their faces at the front to provide the best possible lead outs to their men. Meanwhile Hushovd and McEwen, men who don't use lead-outs were searching for the best wheel to hang onto. Through the chicane and all hell broke loose.

Renshaw and Julian Dean were next to each other. Renshaw was between Dean and the left hand barrier. Renshaw knew that Cavendish would have to come through on his left, so was trying to keep a gap open. Dean leaned into him slightly and dug in an elbow. Renshaw responded, track style, with a few head butts. At around 375 metres to go, Cavendish thought that this was not going to end safely and went for the gap and sprinted one of his longest ever sprints, and even from that distance was unbeatable, getting his third stage win. He finished ahead of Petacchi, Farrar, Rojas and McEwen. Hushovd was only able to make seventh. Cavendish's efforts had put him into oxygen debt and he was out of breath as he thanked his team mates via the press.

One again Armstrong was caught by a split in the field, loosing another 29 seconds and slipping one place further down the overall classification. Some of the riders who lost ground on the field in the final few kilometres finished over 7 minutes behind. Otherwise, there was no chance amoung the contenders.

While Cavendish was off to see Sea-Bass on the podium, the replays were being watched. Edvald Boasson Hagen of team Sky was being piloted by Thomas, who tried to find away alongside the left hand barrier. This was blocked off by the chaos in front. While Renshaw's fight with Dean was obvious to the world, few were watching what he did after Cavendish had gone past him. Renshaw stopped pedalling as normal then looked around. Behind him, Tylar Farrar was not on Dean's wheel. Renshaw changed his line, almost pushing Farrar into the barrier. That Farrar was able to not crash into anything was good riding, but to go around this and finish third was very impressive. It would probably be true to say that if Renshaw had not blocked Farrar, he would have taken second and taken more points from Petacchi. This block actually hurt Cavendish's chances of getting Green in Paris.

Petacchi had taken enough points to take the lead in the Green Jersey competition. He now had 161 points to Hushovd's 157. McEwen was on 138 and Cavendish on 132.

The organisers had looked over the videos once while the celebrations were going on. They had deemed both the head butts and the swerving to be offenses that merited disqualification from the day's results, and being placed last. Together, they got Renshaw kicked out of the Tour.

Renshaw has used this tour to underline his status as the best lead-out rider in the business. Now he his actions had cost his team the use of his services. After the podium Cavendish was confronted by reporters who knew of the expulsion. He was shocked and downcast. At that moment an official walked by and tried to explain to Cavendish the decision. Cavendish still probably has only seen the conflict with Dean and not the swerving afterwards, and was trying to explain to the commissaire about Dean elbowing but was laughed away.

Of course, anything that Cavendish does is controversial, and any ruling effecting his team obviously going to cause headlines. Last year he was robbed of a finish, and possibly the Green Jersey when he was penalised for pushing Thor Hushovd into the barriers. In that case, the decision was controversial as Cavendish sprinted straight and the barriers were wonky. He could be forgiven for thinking that the race officials were against him.

Looking at the first incident again, which is something that the Tour referees announced that they did not need to do, Renshaw was being elbowed towards the barriers and he was protected the line for Cavendish. While it is more obvious what Renshaw is doing, it does seem unfair for Dean to escape without punishment.

The second incident is clean cut, Renshaw's actions were both stupid and dangerous and a disqualification from the stage and a fine would have been justified. As to whether he should have been kicked out of the race, when nobody was punished for the full scale fight a few days ago is arguable. One thing is for certain, it evens up the sprints. Would Columbia, now down to 7 men following Adam Hansen's non start in stage 2, rearrange their lead-out or would they try and let Cavendish scrap it out without his train?