Stage 10 - Portugese Procession

While Stage 10, a 179km journey from Chambery to Gap contained the back-end of the Alps, in reality it was a transitional day come a day early. Portugal's Sergio Paulinho was the winning member of the surviving breakaway, defeating Vasil Kiryienka in a photo finish, with Dries Devenyns third some 90 seconds back. With the peleton finishing together there was no change to the overall standings.

The peleton decided to take it easy on Bastille Day following yesterday's fireworks on the Madeleine, and allowed a break of 6 lucky riders to finish the day almost 15 minutes ahead. The man who made the most of that opportunity was Sergio Paulinho, who counter-attacked the break with Vasil Kiriyienka some 14km from the finish, before defeating that man by just centimetres in the final sprint to deliver Portugal its first stage victory in over 20 years. The best the French could do on the national day was a fourth from Pierre Rolland, who made it into the days break but missed the vital attack in the closing kilometres. The peleton leisurely rolled into town some 14 minutes later, around 30 minutes after the time the stage was expected to end.

As a prelude to the next two day's, the Sprinters renewed their battle with a contest for 9th place which was won by Mark Cavendish from Alessandro Pettachi and Thor Hushovd. As a result Hushovd's lead in the Green Jersey competition has been cut to 7 points. There was however a change in the Polka Dot Jersey which moved from the shoulders of Anthony Charteau back to Jerome Pineau after Pineau won the sprint for 7th place at the top of the days first climb, the cat-1 Cote de Laffrey. As a result he has a 1 point lead in the classification, competition for which will now go on a mini-hiatus until the Pyrenees.

With the peleton finishing as a bunch there was no change in either the overall or youth classifications with Andy Schleck holding on to both teh Yellow and White Jerseys.

Yellow Jersey - Andy Schleck
Green Jersey - Thor Hushovd
Polka Dot Jersey - Jerome Pineau
White Jersey - Andy Schleck

Tonight's Stage - Tonight sees the race for the Green Jersey resume in Stage 11, a 185km descent from Sisteron to Bour-les-Valence. And with a breakaway succeeding in Stage 10, and only two real sprint stages left before Paris, it will be hard to see the teams of the sprinters not wanting to close down any breaks here. Given that, and with the recent form he has shown, it is almost impossible to go past Mark Cavendish getting his third stage win of this years Tour here.