CYCLING: Tour de France Tour riders dread the abrupt transition that occurs when the race enters the mountains after the opening phase on the flat. The sudden change from pedalling in high gear at high speed to grinding uphill in a low gear is like jumping from a sports car into a tractor.

The feeling is completely different, it is never easy, and this afternoon, when the field tackles the supercategory Col du Soudet, it may be harder than usual.

In this Tour, the "first week" has lasted nine days. There has been no visit to "medium mountain" - the hills of the Massif Central or the Vosges, say - to provide climbing of any kind. Yesterday's stage, won by Spain's Oscar Freire, simply underlined how extreme the contrast will be - the riders sped at almost 30mph over 106 miles through the pine forests of Les Landes with barely a railway bridge to break the rhythm.

The Soudet will be tackled from its harder, western, side while today's other climb, the Marie-Blanque has passages at one in seven, a foully bumpy surface that looks like the side of a house in places. It will be enough at least to force an initial sort-out of the mountain goats from the valley sheep and all eyes will be on Ukraine's Serhiy Gonchar who is wearing the yellow jersey.

Some of the field are feeling the pace before the race has even entered the Pyrenees - flat it truly was yesterday, but 26 riders were unable to hang on and finished between one and eight minutes back. The flat stages have seen off fewer than usual and it may be that the fall-out in the mountains today and tomorrow is proportionately higher.

In this bit of Gascony, duck is an obsession, or rather duck liver is, and Tom Boonen has fluffed his last chance to break his personal duck. Last year, the Belgian sprinter set the race alight early on with two stage wins and looked a shoo-in for the green jersey - 12 months on he has had eight opportunities to take a stage and it has gone horribly wrong time after time.

He has never looked to have the legs of Robbie McEwen and Freire, and yesterday his massive thighs failed to produce again, even though the win was there for the taking as he broke into the lead with 200 metres to the line.

With immaculate timing Freire burst through, with McEwen accelerating at an even greater rate, but just failing to overtake the Spaniard.

In third place was a true blast from the past, the six-time points winner Erik Zabel, who won the green jersey for the first time 10 years ago when Boonen was still at school. The German is now 36, and has lost most of his speed, but his presence alongside Boonen, McEwen and Freire meant this was truly a "royal sprint", as the French call it - between them the quartet have won 26 stages in the race.

On the rest day all the talk was of Floyd Landis's hip - yesterday Knees took over. Christian Knees, a little-known German with Zabel's Milram team, figured in the day's escape with two Frenchmen, Stephane Auge and Walter Beneteau.

For the last two days France has been talking about nothing but headbutts and yesterday McEwen produced his own nod to Zinedine Zidane by playfully walloping Freire with his bonce as they passed over the line.

McEwen was the first man to be disqualified from a Tour stage for a Glasgow kiss last year, but this was merely one hard man's salute to another.

France probably wishes Zidane could say the same.