Tour de France Stage 10 Standings and Results: A Day for Recovery

Stage 10 of the 2010 Tour de France took the riders from Chambery to Gap, a leisurely ride of 179km through the French Alps.

After yesterday’s brutal ride over two category one climbs—and finally the soul destroying Col de la Madeleine—today’s ride was a comparatively easy one with one each of category one, two and three climbs. Being Bastille day, it was also a day for the French riders to try to claim victory on their national day.

As has been the pattern, a breakaway of four riders formed almost immediately consisting of Sergio Paulinho (RadioShack), Mario Aerts (Omega Pharma-Lotto), Dries Devenyns (Quickstep), and Vasil Kiryienka (Caisse D’Espargne).They were joined—eventually—by two more riders, Maxime Bouet (Ag2R) and Pierre Rolland (Bbox).

Aerts was best placed of all the riders in the breakaway with a 32 minute deficit on the Tour leader’s time and presented no threat whatsoever to big names, hence the lack of urgency to chase them down.

The break continued to move away, before eventually stabilizing at the 11 minute mark. The rest of the peloton, however, had decided that today would be an unofficial rest day after what everyone other than Andy Schleck, Alberto Contador, and a handful of riders from the breakaway would have considered a pretty bad day.

Former holder of the yellow jersey, Cadel Evans, came out for the start despite revealing at the end of yesterday’s stage that he had fractured a bone in his elbow and was severely inconvenienced by the pain. It puts his poor performance on stage nine into some perspective and the more relaxed pace will only help the healing process.

So relaxed was today’s pace that the peloton did not even drop the sprinters on the climbs; something that is almost unheard of in the Alps. Team Saxo Bank controlled the peloton looking after Andy Schleck’s yellow jersey and keeping their leader out in front and away from the dangers that lurk within even the most relaxed peloton.

The only real interest lay in who, from the sprinters, would pick up the left over points after the leading bunch had taken their share. The stage eventually went to Paulinho by half a wheel, after he and Kiryienkoleft the other members of the breakaway behind inside the last 10km.

From the peloton, the big sprint names fought for what was left a surprising 12 minutes down on the leaders.  Mark Cavendish narrowly took the sprint from Alessandro Petacchi and Thor Hushovd

Overall, it was a fairly uneventful stage 10, but after the days that had gone before, that may not be a bad thing. The positions at the head of the race remain unchanged and Schleck retains the yellow jersey.

The riders now face a handful of relatively flat stages before they move into the serious mountains of the Pyrenees.

It will be an opportunity for the sprinters to take centre stage again.

Standings after Stage 10

1.    SCHLECK A.              49h 00' 56"
2.    CONTADOR A.            00' 41"
3.    SANCHEZ S.              02' 45"
4.    MENCHOV D.             02' 58"
5.    VAN DEN BROECK J.    03' 31"
6.    LEIPHEIMER L.           03' 59"
7.    GESINK R.                 04' 22"
8.    SANCHEZ L.               04' 41"
9.    RODRIGUEZ OLIVER J.  05' 08"
10.    BASSO I.                 05' 09"