Gerdemann wins first Alps stage
2007-07-14 19:00
Le Grand Bornand - Germany's Linus Gerdemann, of the T-Mobile team, won the seventh stage of the Tour de France on Saturday, and took possession of the yellow jersey after the 197.5km run from Bourg-en-Bresse to Le Grand Bornand.
He also took over the race leader's yellow jersey from Switzerland's Fabian Cancellara ahead of Sunday's eighth stage, which could feature the first skirmishes in the battle for the race's main prize.
Friday's first day of three in total in the Alps provided plenty of drama, but with another five days of climbing on the race none of the yellow jersey contenders dared show their hands too early.
The latter stages of the race were brought to life by race debutant Gerdemann, who attacked an earlier 15-man breakaway group inside the last 21km.
Gerdemann had been riding alongside Credit Agricole's Dimitriy Fofonov, the Kazakh having done most of the work as they fought to distance some of their earlier companions on the Col de la Colombiere.
Fofonov was then stunned by a sudden attack from Gerdemann, who attacked 7km from the summit of the 16km-long ascent.
Behind him meanwhile Spaniard Inigo Landaluze had parted company with fellow Spaniard David de la Fuente in a bid to catch the young German.
Gerdemann came over the summit of the Colombiere, the first category one climb of the race, with a 17 second gap to close on the remaining 10km descent into Le Grand Bornand.
Concerns over the condition of yellow jersey contenders Alexandre Vinokourov and Andreas Kloden meanwhile were unfounded, the Astana pair finishing the stage with all the main contenders.
Kloden was riding his second day since fracturing his tailbone on Thursday's fifth stage, while Vinokourov appeared relatively unaffected by the cuts in his knees which required over 30 stitches.