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 Quite the wild stage today, eh? As the tour climbed into Andorra, with a mountaintop finish on the HC climb up to Arcalis ski station... A day-long break of eight riders managed to contribute a rookie winner - Brice Feillu (pic at left) - who persevered wonderfully to pull away from his group - and a new yellow-jersey-wearer - Rinaldo Nocentini, who managed to save his time over the Astana favorites. Most of the GC leaders finished together in a peloton led by Astana, but Alberto Contador attacked with 1K to go, putting 21s on everyone including teammate Lance Armstrong. Alberto is left 6s out of yellow, with Lance 2s back of that, and Levi Leipheimer and Andreas Kloden remain right there too.
The big story will be "Alberto attacks Lance"; one might ask, why, but then again Alberto would say why not. He is clearly the strongest climber in the race, it was an HC mountaintop, he had a chance to put time into all the GC contenders (the three closest being teammates) and so he took it. It was wonderful watching him blow up the mountain. And it will certainly make for great theater as the Tour continues... including tomorrow's stage, also in the Pyrenees. Should be interesting!
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