2007 Tour de France, Prologue to Stage 10

These are the profiles for the individual stages in the 2007 Tour de France, with the Prologue on 7 July, Stage 1 on 8 July, and Stage 10 on 18 July.

tages

Prologue

;2007-07-07 — London (England) - 7.9 km (ITT)On Saturday July 7, 2007, the Individual time trial started in Whitehall, London passing Westminster, then along "Victoria Street" and "Buckingham Gate", past Buckingham Palace and looping through Hyde Park before finishing in "The Mall". A distance of 7.9 km (4.9 miles) was covered by the riders. It was won by Team CSC's Fabian Cancellara, with a time of 8'50.

tage 2

;2007-07-09 — Dunkirk - Ghent (Belgium), 168.5 kmThe second stage marked the return of the Tour to the land of cycling, along the roads of the great Flanders classics: Ronde van Vlaanderen, Het Volk, etc. It was anticipated that the race should start to get more serious during this stage, with the wind and the risk of hitting the kerbs definitely playing an important role. It was fairly short at 168.5 km (105 miles) in length and with no categorized climbs.

There was a breakaway during the stage by Marcel Sieberg, Cedric Herve and Ruben Perez who shared the bonuses available at the three sprints: however, this never stretched beyond 6 minutes ahead of the peloton and they were caught some 3 km from the finish.

Within the last 2 km, a Liquigas rider fell sideways causing others to fall. Around 20 riders fell blocking the entire road and leaving approximately 30 riders to sprint for the victory, eventually taken by Gert Steegmans in his home country ahead of his compatriot and team-mate Tom Boonen, who took over the green jersey by coming second in the stage.

Stage 2 Result

General Classification after Stage 3

tage 5

;2007-07-12 — Chablis - Autun, 182.5 kmThe fifth stage featured eight climbs, including one Category 2 climb. Many of the sprinters lost contact with the peloton, but all of the major contenders finished together, apart from Alexander Vinokourov. Vinokourov crashed before the final climb, and ended up losing more than a minute to the rest of the field. The stage was won by Filippo Pozzato.

Stage 5 Result

General Classification after Stage 6

tage 8

;2007-07-15 — Le Grand-Bornand - Tignes, 165 km

This was the shortest road stage, but was very tough. The climbing started from the outset, with two small climbs in the first 25 km before, from 75 kilometres out, tackling the Cormet de Roselend (19 km at 6%), the Montée d'Hauteville - the start of the Col du Petit Saint-Bernard - and the climb up to Tignes (18 km at 5.5%) for a very difficult finish at a height of 2068 m.

Denmark's Michael Rasmussen went it alone for victory in Tignes to secure the Tour de France Yellow jersey. Rasmussen, who began the day 39th overall, was part of a breakaway halfway through the 165km eighth stage. He went solo on the last climb to finish two minutes and 47 seconds ahead of Iban Mayo and 5:04 clear of Linus Gerdemann, now second overall.

Alexander Vinokourov and Andreas Klöden both lost 4:29 while Michael Rogers crashed out of the race. T-Mobile leader Rogers was in the same group as Rasmussen - and the race leader on the road - on the descent of the Cormet de Roselend when he hit a roadside barrier. He bravely carried on before being forced to pull up later with a dislocated shoulder.

Levi Leipheimer sustained a ten-second penalty for slipstreaming behind his team car after sustaining a mechanical issue which necessitated a bike change. Had this not occurred, Leipheimer would have finished 2nd overall in the general classification, 2 seconds in front of Cadel Evans.

Stage 8 Result

General Classification After Stage 9

See also

*2007 Tour de France
*2007 Tour de France, Stage 11 to Stage 20