Omega Pharma Lotto's Jelle Vanendert won the 14th stage of the Tour De France this afternoon.
Today was certainly one for the mountain climbers amongst the 171 members of the peleton left in the race and stage 14 was again in Pyrenees, starting out at Saint Gaudens which was welcoming Le Tour for the 12th time and after 168.5km, finishing on the 1780m Plateau de Beile on the end of a 60m long straight following a Hors Category climb of 15.8km. Twice the winner of the stage which has finished at the Plateau de Beile including Lance Armstrong has gone on to win the stage.
Twenty riders including David Millar (Pictured below) got into the first break of the day in sunny, very pleasant conditions and it was regular escaper Mikael Delage of FDJ who got the five points for being the first over the Category 2 Col de Portet d'Aspet.
The day's sprint came at Ogribet and saw Mikael Delage boost his bank balance by 1500 euros when he beat David Millar over the line.
The race continued down the D17, twenty miles from the border with Spain heading for the Col de la Core which saw Mikael Delage take the ten points offer, followed by Chavenal and Casar.
Mark Cavendish was finding this a tough day. He had been dropped by the peleton and his team-mate Bernie Eisel had to thrown cold water over him in a bid to try and get Cavendish back on track.
David Millar, along with Cesar and El Fares were nine minutes ahead of the peleton and it was Sandy Casar who leapt out to take the five points from the climb on the second category Col De Latrape with Millar taking two points.
The Category One Col d'Agnes was next and this time. Millar had dropped back and it was Sylvain Chavenal who took the ten points.
The mountains were coming up thick and fast and after Lars Ten Den Dam in a peleton which had upped the pace, had crashed, the D18 road threw up the 1517m Port de Lers which saw Gorka Izagirre of Euskatel first over.
The race moved off the D18 onto the D8, the N20 and the D522 and onto Plateau de Beille.
Andy Schleck attacked, Contador followed as did Omega Pharma Lotto's Jelle Vanendert who caught Casar after a second attack from Schleck and shot post him.
Ivan Basso was leading the charge back with Andy Schlekc and yellow jersey wearing Thomas Voeckler but Vanenert took the win in a time of 5hr 13 mins and 25 seconds ahead of Samuel Sanchez, Andy Schleck, Cadel Evans and Team Sky's Rigoberto Uran.
Thomas Voeckler keeps his yellow jersey from Frank Schleck with Cadel Evans in third.
Stage 15 is from Limoux to Montpellier and is 193km long.
Pictures copyright of Covsupport News Service. Credit CNS/KM and©Pool/Tim De Waele
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