The second stage which was 201km long from Brussels to Spa, was started by 195 riders and the crashes which marred yesterday's stage continued today.
A group of eight riders went clear but as the race reached the Ardennes, famous for some of the battles there in World War 2, Lotto's Mickael Delage crashed into a road barrier as the rain came down.
With 34.8km left and with Mark Cavendish trailing at the back of the peleton, his team-mate Maxine Montfort attacked. Sylvain Chavanel followed before eventually shooting past him.
Making the move on a slippery road proved to be the right thing to do by the Quick Step rider and with 30km to go, there was a crash which saw a Quick Step rider go down on the descent of the Col du Stockeu , taking down a motorbike with another another just behind also going down as well.
Andy Schleck suffered an arm injury but got back on his back and joined his brother in the chase of Lance Armstrong and Alberto Contrador who were also amongst the fallers.
Andy Schleck
Chavenel took his lead to 2.47 as the peleton which was split into three groups tried to get to the finish.
Brit's Steve Cummings and Geraint Thomas were in a group which had avoided problems that others had faced on a stage that had some nasty corners and they kept the pressure up.
Steve Cummings
However, Chavenel, who was chasing the yellow jersey, was away with 5km to go with Montfort a long way back in pursuit.
His lead with 2.5km to go was three minutes and twelve seconds as he tore down a long straight road into Spa, watched by a big crowd.
The Frenchman riding for a Belgium based team, kept increasing his time and won the race in 4h 40 min, 48 sec before he was mobbed by the press after he had celebrated his victory and the gaining of the yellow jersey.
Points were still up for grabs for the Green Points jersey but the riders led by Fabian Cancellera, decided that no-one was going to contest it and as a bunch the riders rode over the line together. Maxime Bouet got a bit forward of the ground and much to the Swiss rider's disgust he finished second with Wegmann third and Robbie McEwen fourth.
Robbie McEwen
Chavanel, who leads the yellow jersey from Cancellera by 2 mins 57 seconds and took the Green Jersey and the Brandt Combatif rider of the day award, dedicated the win to his wife and children, saying to Eurosport that, it was a hugely difficult stage but I managed to do it.
Mark Cavendish (pictured below) trailed in 9 mins 48 seconds down.
Thor Hushovd, who went back to the team bus to calm down, spoke about the neutralisation of the field which cost him a chance of the green jersey due to Cavendish being at the back of the field, some two hours after the race ended.
Speaking to our friends at www.cyclingnews.com, Hushovd said: "What happened is not normal," Hushovd said on the phone. "I'm very sorry for the riders who crashed. It was a big mess. But yet, this is still a bike race. Crashes happen all the time. It's been a really big mistake from ASO and the UCI commissaires to agree to neutralise the end of the stage. The Tour de France is a big, big race. Things like that shouldn't happen."
"Why should Cancellara decide? "He's a rider like us." "I've been riding all day for the stage win and the green jersey and I end up with nothing," Hushovd continued. "This is not fair. Will the same thing happen tomorrow? Will the times for GC be taken before the pavés sections? If Alberto Contador or another big rider crashes tomorrow on the cobblestones, he's entitled to ask for the race to be neutralised too! So when will we race, really?"
Radion Shack's Chris Horner said to www.cyclingnews.com: "They put on a dangerous stage and so when they put it on like that, that's the result they'll get. "They got all their drama on the descent and they lost it all at the finish and they got what they deserved. The only thing more stupid about this stage is the pro cycling federation and Cedric Vasseur for ever letting a stage like this exist in the first place. There's no place in the Tour de France for a stage like this."
"Of course we knew it was dangerous if it was going to rain. We knew. That descent is dangerous in the dry and in the wet it's suicidal and there you go. They got all their excitement.
"Everybody went down. I had bikes going down behind me that slid in front of me. The stage was too dangerous to be in the Tour de France."
Horner was not saying who in the peleton actually made the decision for the go-slow and added: "It was nobody's idea and everybody's idea. You could feel it. I didn't even hear them talking about it, but you could feel it happening. That's what they get and sooner or later the riders are going to protest one way or another."
Tomorrow's third stage is from Wanze to Porte Du Hainaut and is 213km long. It takes in the cobbles used in the Paris-Roubaix.
You can follow the HTC Colombia riders in real time during Tuesday's stage with the new tracking application that takes you inside the world's biggest and most celebrated race. Track riders' speed, heart rate, power output and other data provided by SRM, and see where each rider in at any one time on Google's My Tracks Each stage's real time data is viewable at http://www.highroadsports.com/velostream and www.google.com/mytrackstour.
You can see the race live on British Eurosport and ITV4.
Pictures copyright of Covsupport News Service. Credit CNS/KM