Great Top 3 on Mur de Bretagne:

Philippe Gilbert has had a very good Tour de France so far. On Sunday he wore the yellow jersey - which he accompanied with dyed blonde hair and with a yellow wrist watch. On Monday instead he wore the green jersey, accompanied by a green wrist watch. And today, on his birthday, he wore the polka dots jersey, which he accompanied with a white wrist watch. But still, today wasn't a very good day for PhilGil. In fact, although he was one of the favourites of the day, he didn't manage to outsprint Evans on the first uphill finish of the Tour. And to say that it was even his birthday, poor Phil... But still, I'm sure he won't get depressed by this.

The epilogue of today's stage probably surprised many supporters. Not only Phil the Cannibal didn't win, but Thor Hushovd managed to keep the yellow jersey. And guess who won? Cadel Evans, who right now has become one of the most dangerous contenders for the final victory. However, what impressed me the most today was the way Evans got his victory: by outsprinting Contador in the very last meter of race.

Yes, Contador. I thought he could have done something good today, especially because he wanted to give a strong signal to those who have already counted him out of the race for the podium. Therefore, he was in the first positions of the peloton even before the start of the Mur de Bretagne.

Until that moment, few things had happened. Cunego had crashed before the beginning of the race, LL Sanchez had punctured and Johnny Hoogerland (together with Izagirre, Kadri, Erviti and the engineer Jeremy Roy) had gone on a breakaway. A pretty normal day at the Tour, in other words.

The few particular things to point out this afternoon were the funny pursuit of the peloton starring Romain Feillu in the last kms of race and, most important, Van De Walle's retire from the race. Jurgen abandoned the competition as a consequence of his crash on the first day of race and is now on his way to Belgium to have his left aductor examined.

Actually, Italian spectators had another thing that made today's stage pretty peculiar. In fact, Rolf Sorensen spent a few minutes of his busy afternoon in the van of Italian tv, commenting the race and remembering his goold old times in the peloton as a teammate of Davide Cassani. 

As predictable, as soon as I saw Rolf I started screaming: 'Susanne, where are you??' and I also started to think about how Sorensen managed to escape from the van of the Danish tv in order to go chatting with Cassani. 

After some minutes, Rolf had to abandon the Italian comment of the race because his colleagues were looking for him. But still, before going he said that Danish tv is doing a great job with broadcasting the Tour and added that they're broadcasting it all. One of the Italian chronists let him say those things but, as soon as Rolf disappeared from his sight, said that, in reality, no one broadcasts more hours of race than the Italian tv. Now me expects Rolf to give a reply to this statement in the next few days ;)

Anyway, back to the stage. In the last 10 kms of race, LT took the lead of the peloton. In the meanwhile, also Mollema showed himself at the head of the race.

When the final climb began, everyone could see Contador getting closer and closer to the head of the peloton which, in that moment, was controlled by the Lotto guys (Vanendert, Sieberg and Lang did a great job this afternoon). Unfortunately, LT wasn't visible anymore, although Frankie managed to reappear at the head of the race very soon. But still, Andy had already lost his way in the peloton and so, when Contador attacked in the steepest part of the climb, the young Luxembourgian leopard couldn't do anything but watch.

Gilbert, on the other hand, immediately jumped on Alberto's wheel and was followed by Evans, Kloden, Frankie (yay!), Uran, Samu Sanchez, Vinokourov, Van den Broeck and Hushovd (!!). Then it was Uran's turn to attack, although his try didn't have any luck. Therefore Contador tried escaping again, but he was followed by the other riders also on this occasion. As a consequence the race ended in a sprint, which saw Cadel Evans getting the victory right in front of Alberto. Alberto who, thinking he had won, raised his arms to the sky before being frozen by a bad stare coming from Evans (I'm exaggerating).

Talking about Contador's second placement, I think we can all say that it was caused also by the fact that he kept his hands on the upper part of his handlebar while sprinting - a beginner's mistakes, according to Cassani, which made him miss the stage victory.

Scrolling down the stage classification, we can see that third this afternoon was a great Vinokourov, 6th was a super Hushovd (the rider who impressed me the most this afternoon, there are no words to describe what he did!) and 7th was Frank Schleck. All those riders had the same time as the winner.

Wiggins and Basso, on the other hand, crossed the finish-line 6" after Evans, whereas Horner, Leipheimer and Schleck finished the stage 8" after the first 10 riders.

Of course, everyone has already started to say that today's stage showed us that Contador is very strong and that Andy Schleck is really weak. Personally, I feel like underlining the fact that Andy doesn't like short climbs, so he doesn't usually ride that well on them. But still, I must admit that, imo, OGL made a mistake at the start of the climb: he wasn't in the first positions of the peloton. As a consequence, when Conti attacked, he couldn't follow him.

I found Andy's wrong position inside the peloton a bit strange, since LT had been at the head of the group for some kms before the start of a climb. But still, all of a sudden, it became impossible to spot Leopard riders at the head of the bunch. In the following seconds, Frank had to struggle hard to go back to his original place, whereas Andy didn't make it. Actually, I'd like to know what caused the guys to get so scattered through the peloton in the last kms of race.

Anyway, although Contador gave a good signal, I think we can say that today's stage wasn't completely negative for los Schlecks. In fact, Frank was simply fantastic, whereas Andy (in spite of everything) could limit his time loss in a great way.

(Pic by Sirotti)