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[10.07 17:33] Fränk Schleck took a fourth place in the 195-kilometer sixth stage of Tour de France, which began in Aigurande and finished with two category-2 climbs the last of which was in Super-Besse.

Riccardo Ricco (Saunier Duval) won the stage ahead of Alejandro Valverde (Caisse d’Epargne) and Team CSC Saxo Bank was well represented at the front till the very end with Fränk Schleck only four seconds behind the stage winner and Carlos Sastre another three seconds back in eight place.

Andy Schleck would probably made the top-15 as well had he not been boxed in by a crash at the end. The rider who crashed was none other than leader Stefan Schumacher (Gerolsteiner), who as a result lost the jersey to Kim Kirchen (Team Columbia).

The stage began with three riders escaping but they were controlled by Gerolsteiner throughout the stage and never posed a serious threat. During the last 30 kilometers Caisse d’Epargne took the lead in the peloton and stayed there till the finale.

Eight kilometers from the finish line Vladimir Efimkin (ag2r) attacked and managed to keep a small lead for a couple of kilometers. He was soon joined by David Moncoutié (Cofidis) but with five kilometers to go Christian Vande Velde (Garmin-Chipotle) escaped the peloton along with Leonardo Piepoli (Saunier Duval).

Vande Velde and Piepoli quickly caught up to the two in the break, which caused Moncoutié to fall back and not long after Efimkin followed suit.

The American and the Italian kept their lead until the 10% climb towards the finish line. The peloton was soon split to pieces and there was no shortage of finale drama.

First Fränk Schleck came close to crashing, when a rider swerved out in front of him just 300 meters from the line. Schleck was positioned ready for the sprint by Carlos Sastre, but the duo lost some momentum due to the incident although they kept on, and in the end Fränk Schleck took a fourth place and Sastre a ninth place for Team CSC Saxo Bank.

Shortly after the incident with Schleck Senior there was another situation, where the leader of the race, Stefan Schumacher (Gerolsteiner) crashed and as a result Andy Schleck was boxed in so he had to stop at the side of the road, which cost Schleck Junior about half a minute

“All in all a good stage for us. We managed to confirm that our GC riders are on form so that was very positive. It was too bad that Andy lost time on something which could’ve been avoided and which wasn’t his fault but that can’t be helped – that’s cycling for you,” said an otherwise satisfied sports director Kim Andersen after the stage and continued:

“Nicki Sørensen got through the stage ok. His knee even felt better towards the end so that’s great news and gives us hope that he’ll be back one hundred percent in another few stages.

Photo by: © Tim De Waele