Key moments

Four men escaped the peloton early in the 10th stage and hovered around two and a half minutes ahead on a day in which earpieces were absent from the peloton. With no radio contact between the team cars and the cyclists, the theme of the day was about controlling the escape before setting up a sprint. Various teams took control of the chase but it was in the final kilometer that Columbia really created a train. This was just after the capture of three Frenchmen – Benoit Vaugrenard, Samuel Dumoulin and Thierry Hupond – and one Russian, Mikhail Ignatiev who was a passenger in the move for most of the day. Once the bunch reached the finale, however, there was little doubt about who the winner would be… it was that man Cavendish in complete control again as he led Thor Hushovd to the line with what seemed to be complete ease.

The Progress Report
The 194.5km 10th stage of the 2009 Tour de France began at 12.37pm with 171 riders at the sign on. The conditions for the race from Limoges to Issoudun were mild, with a temperature of about 23 degrees Celsius at the start. There were three hills at the start of the stage, each ranked cat-four. They were the cote de Salvanet (12.5km) cote de Saint-Laurent-les-Eglise (27.5km) and the cote de Benevent-L’Abbaye (58.5km). The three intermediate sprints were dispersed evenly throughout the stage. Points for the green jersey were awarded in Lauriere (44km), Aigurande (122.5km) and Saint-Aout (167.5km). The stage featured a new rule that banned radio communication with the cyclists.

Teams Share The Chasing Duties
The first attack came from Hupond (SKS) who broke free at 2km. He was chased down by Ignatiev (KAT) and Vaugrenard (FDJ) and caught at 3.5km. At 5km, Dumoulin (COF) was in a counter-attack. He was at 25” and the peloton at 45” and at 11km Dumoulin caught the lead group. The escapees had to wait briefly at a level crossing but they maintained a lead of the bunch: 1’35” at 11.5km; 3’45” at 16km. Then Columbia put two riders on the front of the peloton. At 20km, the four led by 3’25”. The average speed of the first hour was 38.6km/h. Various teams led the peloton – including AG2R, Milram, Rabobank, Liquigas and Quickstep. The maximum gain for the escapees was 3’50” at the 27.5km mark. The average speed for the second hour was 36.2km/h.
Arvesen (SAX) and Pate (GRM) were caught up in a fall at 88km. Both remounted their bikes and the peloton appeared to ease its pace, dropping from 1’30” behind the escapees to 2’30” in a matter of kilometers. The average speed for the third hour was 38.8km/h.

Ignatiev The Passenger
Of the four in the lead, Ignatiev was the only one not to do any work. He followed the three Frenchman since joining the move. The average speed for the fourth hour was 41.1km/h. With 30km to go, the Russian did (finally) come through to do a turn of pace. With 25km to go, the bunch was at 50” and Milram and Liquigas started sending troops forward in numbers. At 20km to go, only 28” separated the leaders from the chasers. The pace picked up and the leaders increased their advantage to 40” with 15km to go.
There were several accelerations from Ignatiev in the final 10km and this helped keep the move alive until the final 2km but the Russian, Dumoulin and Vaugrenard were swallowed up 1,900m from the line. Hupond insisted as long as he could but was caught 1,400 before the finish.

Columbia Control It For Cavendish
Under the ‘flamme rouge’ the Columbia team was in perfect formation. They had four riders at the front of the peloton and set the sprint up perfectly for Cavendish who came off Mark Renshaw’s wheel with 220m to go and easily held off Thor Hushovd and Tyler Farrar in another superb display of sprinting. It is the Brit’s third stage win this year (seventh in the Tour) but he was not able to take back the green jersey from Hushovd. Nocentini finished 34th in the stage, at the same time as Cavendish, and will wear the yellow jersey in stage 12.

A little error in the finale cost Thor Hushovd the chance of winning the stage but the Norwegian remains in the lead of the points classification thanks to a fine second place behind Mark Cavendish.

“To win the green jersey, I have to go out hard. In the next two days the final is quite hard and I know I can beat Cavendish. I’ve already done it and I’m still optimistic. I just want to go full gas when it matters most.
“Today it was a really hard sprint. Today Columbia went really fast again and it was really tricky with about 500 meters to go. I braked a little bit too much and I lost four or five meters on Cavendish and I had to spend too much energy to close the gap…
“There was one point in the sprint where I understood that I could never get past Mark so I had to fight for the second place. When I looked behind I saw it was no trouble. I’m happy to get the points for the green jersey but I’m not happy to get second.”

For his third victory salute in the 2009 Tour de France, Mark Cavendish took off his sunglasses and pointed to them as he coasted over the line well ahead of Thor Hushovd. The British sprinter said he likes the green color of the Oakley frames but that they’d look even better with a matching jersey. Even so, more stage wins remains his focus.

 “I always say that I’m put in the best position by the guys, so if we don’t win it’s down to be me. Everybody sees the finish, they see all the team support and it can be said that all I have to do is finish but when you lose after these guys on my team have put so much in, it’s a hard thing to take – especially at a young age. When the guys go one hundred per cent and I can’t finish it off… it’s not a great feeling. When they do the work and I can get it right – you’ve done the best that day and taken the win – then it makes it a massive difference. It’s a great feeling.
“I’m more focused on stage wins. I want to get to Paris. I want to win on the Champs-Elysées but obviously there should be other stage wins coming so maybe I can build my points back towards Thor. Like you saw today, I’m not going to go for the intermediate sprints but I’m going for stage wins and hopefully the green jersey will come with that.
“It was a technical finish with a lot of corners and sections that were slightly uphill but we had a dominant team with all nine guys riding at the front in the finish and they took me to 200 meters to go.”