SAINT JEAN DE MAURIENNE, France, July 13, 2010 – Britain’s Bradley Wiggins swapped his Tour de France podium ambitions for hopes of a top ten finish after an epic day of racing Tuesday.

The race’s ninth stage was only the second day in the high mountains, but with four mountain passes including the 25.5km ascension of the Madeleine it lived up to it’s expectations as a heart breaker for some contenders.

While Cadel Evans was arguably the day’s biggest loser after he tumbled from first to 18th place and 7min 47sec off the pace of new leader Andy Schleck, Wiggins barely fared better than the Australian.

Team Sky’s leader, who finished fourth last year, was left limiting his losses as the pace increased on the Madeleine before eventually trailing home 4:53 on Schleck to sit 16th overall at 7:18 behind the Luxemburger.

Wiggins’ dream of a top three finish may be over, but he was gracious in defeat.

“That’s just the way it goes. That’s life, unfortunately,” he said.

“You try your hardest, you do everything possible to be in good shape and it obviously not with the best of them.

“It’s only sport at the end of the day.”

Wiggins said during the rest day that the race will be decided by minutes, and not seconds, this year because of the four tough days of climbing which will begin Sunday in the Pyrenees.

That prediction appears true already, and the race is only at the halfway stage.

Schleck now has just a 41sec lead on reigning champion Alberto Contador, who countered several attacks by the Saxo Bank leader on the Madeleine climb before both went on to finish two seconds after French stage winner Sandy Casar.

Euskaltel’s Samuel Sanchez, the Olympic champion, is a surprise third at 2:45, Russia’s Denis Menchov is fourth at 2:58 and Belgian Jurgen Van den Broeck is fifth at 3:31.

Other podium contenders include American Levi Leipheimer, sixth at 3:59, Dutchman Robert Gesink, seventh at 4:22, and Ivan Basso, 10th at 5:09.

Wiggins said he had some comfort knowing just where his limits stood, but he refused to throw in the towel just yet.

“At least you know where you stand – you haven’t got to wait two and a half weeks to know where you stand,” he added.

“I’ll just do my best every day. I don’t think the GC’s (general classification) finished totally in terms of getting a respectable position and that may be top 10 for me, something like that.

“I don’t want to give up and throw my toys out of the pram, finish at the back or go home, so I’m going to just push on every day and maybe just recalibrate, say top 10 is now the goal.

“We put everything into it, it hasn’t worked. It’s not because we haven’t tried.”

Fellow Briton David Millar, of Garmin-Transitions, narrowly escaped missing the time cut-off limit for the stage, the Scot suffering through the stage to finish 181st and last at 42:45 behind Casar.

Article: Justin Davis (AFP)