Aw, man!  First Chris Froome and now Alberto Contador have crashed out of the 2014 Tour, leaving Vincenzo Nibali as the last favorite standing.  Stage 10 was always going to be one of the toughest in the whole tour, with seven categorized climbs and two Cat 1s near the end, but add serious rainstorms and a lot of competition going into the rest day tomorrow, and it was wild.  Joaquim Rodriguez animated the early break, taking all the climbs in successful pursuit of the climbers polka dot jersey, but sadly Alberto Contador hit a pothole while descending in the rain and broke his leg, ending his tour.

Nibali saved his firepower for the last climb and powered up the final stretch of 20% to take the stage and reclaim the jersey.  At this point he's the overwhelming favorite to keep it all the way to Paris.  That same climb reordered the general classification; Richie Porte now sits second (2:23), and Alejandro Valverde third (2:47).  Other would-be contenders include Tejay Van Garderen, moving up to seventh (3:56) after a good day, and world champion Rui Costa now in ninth (3:58).

Tomorrow is the tour's first rest day and boy is the peleton ready for it.  I'll try to to a little photo essay.  And Wednesday's stage 11 is one of those bumpy stages which are tough to predict; four smaller catagorized climbs in the last 40K might let a breakaway escape, or a strongman like Peter Sagan triumph.  We'll see...

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