For men such as Britain's sole remaining representative in this Tour, Max Sciandri, who are neither specialist sprinters nor pure climbers, opportunities to win stages are few and far between, and they tend to come on days like yesterday's undulating run south into the Dordogne, where a succession of small hills are ideal terrain for an opportunist move.

When Sciandri rode into Brivela-Gaillarde yesterday, however, he was anything but happy. "I'm very pissed off, very disappointed," he said, putting the blame for his failure to win the stage squarely on the shoulders of the Frenchman Cedric Vasseur.

Sciandri spent much of the stage out in front with Vasseur and the Spaniard Jose Rodriguez, at one point boasting a 6 1/2-minute lead on the peloton, which gave the Anglo-Italian the maillot jaune "on the road" and realistic hopes at least of winning the stage.

The Olympic bronze medallist was mystified, however, when Vasseur, who held the yellow jersey in last year's Tour, suddenly decided to stop sharing the pacemaking 12 miles out of Brive. "You start riding tactically with two or three miles to go, not that far away from the finish," he explained. "I knew it was the end when he stopped pulling. If he had carried on, for sure we would have made it."

For the second day in succession the stage belonged to the Italian Mario Cipollini. His body has been perforated in eight places by crashes in the final kilometres in Dublin and Cholet but his ego has not been dented. "If I had not crashed a couple of times, I would have won four or five stages by now," he said yesterday. His aim, it seems, is to get to Paris for the first time in his five Tours.

After a week when the seizure of banned drugs in northern France has dominated the Tour, attention should at last focus on the racing today, with the 58 kilometre (36mile) individual time-trial in the heart of the Correze countryside. This stage is what the French like to call the first rendezvous - an appointment which no one with serious designs on the yellow jersey can afford to miss.

The Indurain Tours followed a pattern in which the big Spaniard would win the first stage of this nature in convincing style and then would concentrate on defending the advantage that he had gained. If Jan Ullrich - who has not really looked in trouble since the race began in Dublin a week ago - is to be taken seriously as Indurain's successor, he has to win today.

For all that Ullrich has won two such lengthy time-trial stages in the last two Tours, he is not talking up his chances on the undulating roads through the area to which Hillary Clinton was taken this year to be shown the typical face of La France Profonde. On paper his biggest threat is the man who has taken over from Indurain as leader of the Spanish Banesto team, Big Mig's lookalike Abraham Olano, winner of the closing contre la montre in last year's Tour.

Olano will start shortly after Ullrich, which means he will be fully aware of the German's progress; he will also be able to take time checks on the Frenchman Laurent Jalabert, the reigning world champion in the discipline. As for the little grimpeurs Richard Virenque and Marco Pantani, they could well wave au revoir to their chances of winning the Tour.

The young Australian Stuart O'Grady, who has led the race for two days, accepts that his spell in the yellow jersey will probably end today. "My job for the Tour is done," he said yesterday. "Time trials like this are not my speciality."

O'Grady was not unhappy that Vasseur had attacked. "We all agreed it would be difficult to defend the yellow jersey today, so it was decided to have a rider up there if any escape materialised. However, it worked out in the end that I stayed in yellow and I'm happy about that." His has been an entertaining sideshow; today the big acts will take centre stage. O'Grady said.