Thor Hushovd won the 16th stage of the Tour De France this afternoon.
Today was a difficult stage as the race headed out of Saint Paul Trois Chateaux and headed for the Alps with a finish in Gap, the capital of the Southern Alps, which was staging Le Tour for the 20th time.
A ride of 162.5km faced the riders who set off down the D94. It was not until there was 82kms to go that we saw the first break of the day
Jeremy Roy was in that break with Marcelo Marcato, Tony Martin, Andriy Grivki, Thor Hushovd, Alan Lezaun, Edvald Boasson-Hagen, Ryder Hesjedal, Dries Devenyns and Mikhail Ignatiev.
Ireland's Nicholas Roche was in a second group, some two minutes back whilst the peleton including yellow jersey wearing Thomas Voeckler who is struggling with the amount of media interest in him and green jersey wearer Mark Cavendish.
The day's sprint came at Veynes with 45km to go and saw Quick Step's Dries Devenyns takes the 20 points on offer. The peleton rolled through six minutes later with Mark Cavendish who had been at the front of the peleton not contesting the two available points.
The rain was coming down pretty heavily as the riders headed for the Col De Mense with 11.5kms to go. Garmin's Ryder Hesjesdal and Mikael Iganatiev were out in front, whilst Alberto Contador (pictured below) shot out of the peleton.
Thomas Voeckler and Andy Schleck went with Contador whilst just under five minutes up the road, Hesjedal was first over the final mountain of the day.
Contador, Cadel Evans and Samuel Sanchez were in a third group on the road, behind a group containing HTC Highroad's Tony Martin.
With two kms to go, Edvald Boasson Hagen and Thor Hushovd had caught up with Hesjedal. The three sprinted for the line on the 1300m long avenue du Msrechel Foch and it was Thor Hushovd who was first over to take the stage in a time of 3hr 31 mins and 38 seconds.with Boasson Hagen second, Hesjedal third and Tony Martin (pictured below) fourth
Thomas Voeckler came in at 4.45 back,losing time to Cadel Evans. Mark Cavendish came in six minutes and 47 seconds back on Hushovd.
Voeckler keeps his yellow jersey by 1 minute and 45 seconds from Evans (pictured below).
Tomorrow sees the race leave Gap and go into Italy with a finish at Pinerolo after 179kms.
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