Cadel Evans has gone into the first rest day of the 2008 Tour de France wearing yellow … by just one second.
The Australian rode an amazing stage in the mountains on a day when both the previous yellow jersey, Kim Kirchen, and the second favourite for the tour, Alejandro Valverde, cracked in the mountains and lost time to the Australian. Valverde has now slipped back to 14th place.
Of course the race is a long way from over and with eleven stages still to come, Cadel will have a big job ahead of him defending the yellow jersey.
One of the biggest stories to come out of the tenth stage was the strength of Team CSC who controlled the mountains and put many riders into trouble with their pace. CSC rider Frank Shleck was only a second away from wearing yellow with a tremendous ride up Hautacam.
Out of the eleven remaining stages there are five flat stages, five mountain stages and an individual time trial.
The race is a long way from over but it’s great to see Cadel in yellow.
Below are the top ten places overall from the official Tour De France website.
| 1. |  EVANS Cadel |
1 | SILENCE – LOTTO | 42h 29′ 09″ | |
| 2. |  SCHLECK Frank |
17 | TEAM CSC SAXO BANK | 42h 29′ 10″ | + 00′ 01″ |
| 3. |  VANDEVELDE Christian |
191 | GARMIN CHIPOTLE | 42h 29′ 47″ | + 00′ 38″ |
| 4. |  KOHL Bernhard |
115 | GEROLSTEINER | 42h 29′ 55″ | + 00′ 46″ |
| 5. |  MENCHOV Denis |
131 | RABOBANK | 42h 30′ 06″ | + 00′ 57″ |
| 6. |  SASTRE Carlos |
11 | TEAM CSC SAXO BANK | 42h 30′ 37″ | + 01′ 28″ |
| 7. | KIRCHEN Kim |
41 | TEAM COLUMBIA | 42h 31′ 05″ | + 01′ 56″ |
| 8. | COBO ACEBO Juan Jose |
173 | SAUNIER DUVAL – SCOTT | 42h 31′ 19″ | + 02′ 10″ |
| 9. |  RICCO Riccardo |
171 | SAUNIER DUVAL – SCOTT | 42h 31′ 38″ | + 02′ 29″ |
| 10. | EFIMKIN Vladimir |
104 | AG2R-LA MONDIALE | 42h 31′ 41″ | + 02′ 32″ |
I wouldn’t be surprised to see Cadel lose the winner’s jersey for a few days at some stage but if that hapopens, his time trialling skills should see him return to the number one position on the day before Paris in the 53 km time trial.
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Finding I’m getting addicted to this Tour – enjoying more than the scenery this year & getting into the tactics etc – thanks for the heads up on this great race Rod.
Will you write some more on the diff colour jerseys & what they mean – I could learn something here!
I’ll certainly write a bit about the different jerseys in the next couple of days. It’s fascinating to see the greater interest in the tour this year and to be able to talk to a number of people about exactly what’s happening.
I’m chatting to more and more people who have just ignored the event in the past an yet this time around they want to know how it all works and how a guy who hasn’t yet won a stage can actually be leading the race overall. It’s great when you see the lights go on for some of those people as they start to understand that there’s a lot more to the tour than a bunch of guys riding flat out from start to finish every day.