Chavanel gets the yellow jersey while Andy gets the white one (and Mara Abbott is winning the Giro):

Yes,it's time of changes in the Tour de France's general classification.

Waiting for Morzine stage to create a bigger selection,today we supporters could enjoy an amusing stage in the Jura mountains. In fact,although none of the GC contenders (Schleck, Contador, Arnmstrong) attacked, watching Sylvain Chavanel winning his second stage victory at this year Tour was really nice.

At its beginning,today stage saw some men (Knees,Pineau,Hondo,Ruben Perez and the little Dumoulin) breaking free from the peloton.At a certain point the attackers du jour had a time gap of 8 minutes on the peloton,but then on the penultimate climb Boygues Telecom Team started to pull hard and the advantage of the breakaway guys soon started to decrease.

Boygues' move was (and still is) a mistery to me.I mean,are you trying to tell me that Boygues guys really believed that Voeckler could have won today's stage without problems? Ok, Voeckler is a good rider, but it was predictable that some strong guys would have jumped on his wheel as soon as he had attacked.Some even said that,perhaps,the Boygues guys were being punished by their ds for not entering a breakaway.Logic doesn't believe this explanation, since she's always been told that the only way to survive a Tour is trying to recover as much as possible.So,if she was a ds and had to punish her riders because they didn't enter a breakaway,she would never make them pull at the head of a Tour stage for so many kms,with the risk of making them become too tired or the risk of causing herself enemies inside the peloton.

Anyway,leaving my personal opinion apart and getting back to the race,the first guy to get dropped after Boygues' move was McEwen,who yesterday crashed against a man after crossing the finish-line.

Talking about yesterday (victory by Cav),the most interesting part of the day probably began after the finish-line.In fact,behind the white finish-line of Gueugnon,not just a man made McEwen crash,but Barredo and Rui Costa even started a fist fight.And,after this episode,I think we can officialy declare that 'fist fighting' is the latest Cycledom fashion ('Break you collarbone!' instead is an 'evergreen').In fact,Righi and Evans had a fight in the Giro, Hunter and Fuglsang had a little argument on the road to Arenberg the other day, Barredo and Rui Costa fought yesterday...Me wonders,who will be the next fighters?

Anyway,as soon as McEwen got dropped I thought that he wasn't going to make it to the finish-line in the time-limit and so I thought that,probably,his Tour was over.Luckily Robbie proved I was wrong by coming 175th,in the middle of the gruppetto and on perfect time.Chapeau!

Back to the race,the most important victim of Boygues' move was the yellow jersey,Fabian Cancellara.In fact he got dropped on the penultimate climb,but luckily managed to join the main group again after a few kms.

Towards the top of the penultimate climb then the attack of the Boygues captain Voeckler arrived.T-Blanc and Gauthier ('Where is Fedrigo?',Fangirl went) in fact abandoned the main group of riders together with other riders like Perget (who was in a breakaway also yesterday),Valls Ferri, Lloyd, Garate, Chavanel and Cunego.Also Gerdemann,Nocentini and Gutierrez tried to escape from the peloton,but they didn't succeed.

On the last climb of the day Chavanel attacked,dropped all the other attackers of the day,reached his teammate Pineau (who had been at the head of the race with Hondo since the penultimate climb and who had dropped the German rider on the last climb) and started his lonely race towards success.

In the meanwhile Cancellara had got dropped again and it soon became clear that his yellow jersey was going to end up on Chavanel's shoulders again.With a few kms to the end of the climb also Geraint Thomas gave in and so the white jersey went to Andy Schleck (yay!!).
As mentioned,Chavanel soloed to victory for the second time in 5 days and also got the yellow jersey.Second was 23 year old Valls Ferri,3rd was Garate,4th was Voeckler,5th was Perget,6th was Moreno.Then,all the GC men arrived.

As said,there were no attacks between the GC contenders today,but Kloden lost 4 minutes and Toni Martin crossed the finish-line 19 minutes after a super happy Sylvain Chavanel. Btw,talking about Kloden: on http://sport.rsi.ch/home/channels/sport/%20sport_on_line/2010/07/10-Signori-si-nasce-ed-io-lo-nacqui it is written that the other night he had to sleep in a 'castle bed'.Personally I think you have to be very brave to sleep in a castle bed at the tender age of 35,so chapeau to Kloden for that.

Back to the 'GC group',together with the strongest climbers in it there were also Hesjedal, Nicolas Roche, Eros Capecchi and Chris Sorensen.Hopefully the Dane hasn't spent too much energy today,since Logic believes that he and Jakob Fuglsang will be key helpers for Andy Schleck in the next days.
Cancellara instead crossed the finish line with a 14 minutes delay,together with Breschel and Voigt.

Me wasn't surprised by the lack of attacks in the GC group,although at a certain point,on the penultimate climb,Vinokourov went at the head of the peloton and a chronist said: "Attention to Vinokourov,he's stretching his legs in a very threatening way! Perhaps he's going to attack!".Eventually,Vino didn't attack,but those words gave me occasion of reflecting about the fact that,imo,Vino would look threatening even if he should go to buy an ice cream while on holiday. "Give me the chocolate flavour or I call the Kazakhistani goverment". Gosh,what a frightening vision.
On to a nicer vision,I remind you that Andy Schleck is the new white jersey.To say it with O'Grady,"The white knight is back" (source: Chris Sorensen's last blog entry). And,obviously,Fangirl is very happy about that.

According to http://www.ideal.es/agencias/20100710/deportes/mas-deportes/anadido-declaraciones-protagonistas-septima-etapa_201007101920.html ,after the stage Andy said: "It's been a very hot and hard day.I hadn't seen this stage before of the Tour and its difficulty surprised me.I'm very happy for the white jersey,but my target is a jersey of another colour.Fabian Cancellara didn't have a good day and so now it's up to me.I'm fine".

Here's the new top 10 of the race:
1 Sylvain Chavanel (Fra) Quick Step
2 Cadel Evans (Aus) BMC Racing Team 0:01:25
3 Ryder Hesjedal (Can) Garmin - Transitions 0:01:32
4 Andy Schleck (Lux) Team Saxo Bank 0:01:55
5 Alexander Vinokourov (Kaz) Astana 0:02:17
6 Alberto Contador Velasco (Spa) Astana 0:02:26
7 Jurgen Van Den Broeck (Bel) Omega Pharma-Lotto 0:02:28
8 Nicolas Roche (Irl) AG2R La Mondiale

9 Johan Van Summeren (Bel) Garmin - Transitions 0:02:33
10 Denis Menchov (Rus) Rabobank 0:02:35
Waiting for tomorrow's hard stage to Morzine,let's hope that Andy Schleck will leave all the other riders behind and get the first maillot jaune of his career.

GIRO DONNE:

The Giro Donne over the last 3 days faced its hardest stages,the one with the Ghisallo,the one with the trio Maloja/Bernina/Forcola and,dulcis in fundo,the one with the Stelvio.This is a very long (21 kms and 36 hairpin turns) and hard (7,1% is the average steep,9,5%is the maximum) climb and its top is about 2700 meters high.

As mentioned in the last post,the Ghisallo stage was won by Evelyn Stevens after a long breakaway.The queen of the 2 last mountain stages of the race instead was Mara Abbott. Yesterday she attacked on Maloja (the first climb of the day) and was followed just by Emma Pooley,who however got dropped before of the Bernina.The young American eventually won the stage with 1'07" of advantage on Pooley,while 3rd was Arndt and 4th was Guderzo. Marianne Vos crossed the finish-line 3 minutes after the winner and so the maglia rosa went to Abbott.Second in the GC was Arndt,with just 19" of delay.

Today,however,Abbott proved (once again) to be the strongest climber of this Giro.At the base of Stelvio in fact she attacked and only Pooley could follow her.Then,with 2 kms to go,Mara dropped the British champion and soloed to victory for the second stage in a row.3rd was Arndt,4th was Guderzo.

Tomorrow's stage will be flat and will be the last day of race for the girls.Here's the top 10 of the race:

1 Mara Abbot (USA) US National Team
2 Judith Arndt (Ger) HTC Columbia Women 0:02:08
3 Tatiana Guderzo (Ita) Team Valdarno 0:03:05
4 Claudia Häusler (Ger) Cervelo TestTeam 0:05:29
5 Emma Pooley (GBr) Cervelo TestTeam 0:06:53
6 Eivgenia Vysotska (Ukr) Team Valdarno 0:08:26
7 Marianne Vos (Ned) Netherlands National Team 0:09:32
8 Tatiana Antoshina (Rus) Team Valdarno 0:12:05
9 Olga Zabelinskaya (Rus) Safi - Pasta Zara 0:23:03
10 Elena Berlato (Ita) Top Girls Fassa Bortolo - Ghezzi 0:25:47