Café du Nord in Menetou-Salon decorated for Le Tour in 2009
Pierrick Fedrigo gave France its fourth stage victory in this Tour by comfortably out-sprinting Christian Vande Velde on a flat finish in Pau. The expected bunch sprint never materialised. Although it took some long time before the break of six riders was established, the peloton showed little interest in keeping it under control and the gap went out to nearly 13 minutes.
On the run into Pau Fedrigo and Vande Velde dropped the other four, who included Thomas Voeckler. At the end the bunch ambled in 11.50 mins down with André Griepel winning the sprint for the line on his 30th birthday from Tyler Farrar and Peter Sagan. Sagan now has 356 points in the Green Jersey competition over 100 ahead of Griepel (254) and Goss (203).
Today's stage saw a number of riders quit the Tour: Sylvain Chavanel, Kenny van Hummel, Yauheni Hutarovich, Giovanni Bernaudeau and Brett Lancaster. There are now 156 riders left from the 198, who started out.
Tomorrow is a rest day before the two stages in the Pyrénées, which will be the final opportunity for Wiggins rivals to take time off him before Saturday's time trial.
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