Mario Cipollini was awarded the 171.5km sixth stage of the Tour de France from Amiens to Maubeuge yesterday after Belgian Tom Steels was disqualified by the race stewards, who later rejected an appeal by the Belgian's Mapei team.

Cipollini's win meant he became the first rider since compatriot Gino Bartali in 1948 to win three successive stages, making it 11 career Tour wins.

Steels was placed 172nd and last in the main peloton which finished at the same time as the winner and was given a 30 second time penalty which will count from Saturday's seventh stage and means he starts the day a minute and a second down on overall leader Jann Kirsipuu.

He was also docked 25 points which hurts his chances of taking the green jersey title.

The 27-year-old Steels, who was expelled from the Tour two years ago for throwing a bottle at Frenchman Frederic Moncassin in a sprint, leant heavily on Czech Jan Svorada putting him off balance before launching his final sprint in which he overhauled Cipollini to take the stage.

"Steels came off his racing line enough to obstruct Svorada and in our view that influenced the outcome of the race," explained Jacques Sabathier, president of the race stewards.

Kirsipuu, who finished fourth but gained six seconds bonus when he won the first sprint of the day, retained the overall leader's yellow jersey and leads Cipollini by 26 seconds with Steels temporarily third 31 seconds in arrears.

"It's a good decision. I have great respect for Steels but the sprints must be raced fairly as crashing at 70kph can be deadly like what happened to Manuel Sanroma in the Tour of Catalonia last month," the 32-year-old Cipollini said. Sanroma died as a result of head injuries in a fall.

"I didn't see what happened as I was ahead at the time but its fair to say that Mapei don't deserve to win too many of these stages as it's my team and Telekom who do all the work to reel in the breakaways for the sprinters to finish off the job," Cipollini added.

Steels, who won two stages earlier in the week, couldn't have been less contrite blaming the fracas on a team-mate of Cipollini's.

"It's absolutely outrageous. If no-one moved off their line then there would no longer be sprints," the 27-year-old said.

"I had to change my line because Cipollini's team-mate GianMatteo Fagnini was dropping back and in my way," he added.

The seventh stage today is a 227km ride from Avesnes-surHelpe to Thionville.