Stage 10 - Aurillac => Carmaux

Finally, a 'good' stage on the Tour de France - because no-one crashed out!  It's a little bit sad that this should be dubbed a 'good' stage and not a 'normal' stage on the Tour.  While there was a crash, it was comparatively small, and everyone got up and rode away.  One of the 'uninjured' teams in yesterday's round-up is also off that list now - Leopard Trek had their first piece of bad luck when several of their riders when down in a crash 11 kilometres from the start of the stage, but apart from a few scrapes and bruises all are well.

But that crash was the incentive for the breakaway, using the moment of confusion to leap off the front of the peloton.  Saur-Sojasun's Anthony Delaplace was up there again, along with Remy Di Gregorio from Astana, another team that has changed tactics to breakaways after losing their team leader, and four other riders.   Newbie Marco Marcato (Vacansoleil) made his prescence felt, taking all the King of the Mountains points to prevent anyone else encroaching upon the lead of his teammate Johnny Hoogerland in that competition.

The peloton raced through the intermediate sprint, Mark Cavendish once again showing his dominance in that discipline, before settling itself into a steady rhythm with HTC-Highroad and Europcar making the pace.  They were later joined by the teams of the sprinters such as Omega and Garmin to try and bring the breakaway back before the sprint finish of the stage.

They reeled in the breakaway with around 30 kilometres to go, Marcato trying to hang on until he'd crossed the final time and claimed the final mountain points. But the peloton was too strong riding uphill, and collected the 27-year-old, who won himself the red number of the most combative rider for his efforts.

It wasn't until around 10 kilometres from the finish that anyone made their move.  The golden boy of this year's Tour, Belgian Philippe Gilbert, raced off the front of the peloton, along with the Tour leader Thomas Voeckler, Cofidis' Tony Gallopin, Quickstep's Dries Devenyns and Tony Martin of HTC-Highroad, who was 6th in the GC.  This caused a bit of panic for the peloton, who didn't like the thought of Martin, Voeckler or Gilbert quite so far ahead, even when 'far' constitutes 11 seconds, so there was some frantic pace-making from the teams of the leaders which saw them finally reeled in around five kilometres from the end.

Then the sprinters began to come forward, HTC's lead-out train taking prominence despite being shorter than usual - Matty Goss, Bernhard Eisel and Mark Renshaw were dropped on the climb up the last hill.  This meant that Mark Cavendish went for the sprint from further back than usual.  Appearing from behind the wheel of a Liquigas-Cannondale rider, the Manxman went like crazy as usual, Omega Pharma-Lotto sprinter Andre Greipel on his wheel.  In the last 100 metres Greipel came up beside Cavendish, and finally had his victory over his rival by pipping Cav for the win by a wheel.  Thor Hushovd also made it over the climbs to finish fourth in the stage.