CYCLING/Tour de France: France's love of the heroic loser is incarnated in the smiling, gnomic face of the cyclist Raymond Poulidor, the most famous native of this sleepy part of central France.
This stage was dedicated to the great man, started in his home village and had a perfectly Poulidoresque ending, with two plucky underdogs robbed of victory in the last 30 yards after 75 miles of unstinting effort.
Cycling seems to offer such cruel scenarios more often than other sports, and more often than not it is the sprinters who profit. That was the case yesterday, when Robbie McEwen led the chasing pack past the Italian Filippo Simeoni and the Basque Inigo Landaluze to take his second stage victory of the Tour.
Simeoni is the man who is suing Lance Armstrong for libel, and when the pair enjoyed a 10-minute lead with 42 miles to go, it seemed as if the man who had chosen to take the biggest name in cycling through the Italian courts might be in with a chance of victory.
Interviewed recently, Simeoni said he did not expect Armstrong to be vindictive if he escaped in search of a stage win, and so it proved. Instead the sprinters' teams - McEwen's Lotto, Thor Hushovd's Credit Agricole and Stuart O'Grady's Cofidis - took up the chase, well aware that this may be their last chance until Sunday.
Although Simeoni's team-mate Paolo Valoti attempted to get in the way a little, and almost caused a fist fight, for most of the final miles it was at least 20 men against two. Even so, the sprinters might not have prevailed had Simeoni and Landaluze not slowed down in the final kilometre to discuss how they were going to approach the sprint.
The hectic chase led, inevitably, to the umpteenth crash of this long opening phase, and it was the Norwegian Kurt-Asle Arvesen, a faller last Monday, who came off worst, somersaulting over the Spaniard Mikel Pradera, who hit a bale of straw 10km out.
At the final kilometre Simeoni and Landaluze were 100 yards ahead, and nemesis came split-seconds from the finish line, where less than a wheel separated McEwen, Hushovd and O'Grady.
McEwen opted to go to the left of the duo as they dropped back, disrupting everyone bar himself. His final burst was as electric as it had been in his victory last Monday in Namur, but it was incredible for a man who had doubted his chances of even finishing yesterday's stage due to tendinitis in his left knee, caused by his horrendous crash in Angers last Friday.
McEwen's victory extended his lead in the points standings, but his immediate priority is surviving today's stage. The Tour will finally face the mountains, with a series of vicious little climbs in the Cantal Massif, topping out at almost 5,000 feet on the Pas de Peyrol.
This is not heavy-duty climbing such as the Alps and Pyrenees provide, but today is the longest stage of the race, at almost 150 miles. After 10 stages and 1,000 miles, some picture should finally emerge of the form of Jan Ullrich, Tyler Hamilton and the others, although there seems little doubt that Armstrong is at his usual best.
With French national pride running high, all eyes will be on the young maillot jaune, Thomas Voeckler, who faces his first real test.
The Belgian rider Christophe Brandt faces possible suspension after his methadone positive was confirmed with a test on the B sample he provided after stage two of the Tour in Namur.
Guardian Service
