Cycling Tour de France StageSevenGermany's love affair with France's great race shows no sign of abating, if the scenes here yesterday are anything to go by.
The lines of Volkswagens and Audis parked on the verges began before the Tour route crossed the Rhine and its canals, and from then on the roadsides were one giant bierfest, with crates of lager piled in the asparagus fields amid neatly arranged portable toilets.
The Germans have a long and honourable history in the Tour, with the occasional hero such as Rudi Altig, winner of eight stages in the 1960s, and Didi Thurau, who performed heroically in the 1977 race. But they have never enjoyed anything quite like the last 10 years.
The country's professional team, Telekom, became a force to be reckoned with in 1996 when they won the Tour with the Dane Bjarne Riis, while Jan Ullrich's 1997 win turned him into the nation's best-known sportsman behind a certain Michael Schumacher.
This is the Tour's third visit since 2000 and each time the scenes have been the same: vast, contented crowds, yesterday estimated at 400,000.
Germany has also given the Tour its devil, an eccentric, bearded bike inventor dressed as Lucifer who has waved his toasting fork at the riders from the roadside since 1993.
Yesterday, there were other bizarre contributions to the spectacle: a pair of cyclists on exercise bikes pedalling on top of a camper van and a barrage balloon in T-Mobile pink, which seemed like an invitation to jest about Jan Ullrich's embonpoint.
Telekom, and its current incarnation T-Mobile, have always been upstaged on home soil, however, and yesterday their thunder was stolen by the other German professional team, Gerolsteiner.
They sent one rider after another away during a hectic opening hour of crashes and attacks in heavy rain and were rewarded when their 25-year-old Fabian Wegmann made the day's heroic and ultimately fruitless escape.
Wegmann remained in front for over 100 miles, and had the honour of leading the race onto home soil before he was retrieved by the bunch. It was, however, enough to earn him the King of the Mountains jersey.
Tom Boonen was not at his best, having fallen early in the stage on the wet roads, injuring his back and having to chase for several kilometres.
When the finish sprint came, he never looked able to keep pace with Robbie McEwen, who duly sped to his second stage win of the week, unimpeded by the day's worst crash, a spectacular tangle between the Spaniard Isaac Galvez and the Italian Angelo Furlan.
Close on McEwen's heels was one of the few, tenuous, British interests in the large form of the Swede Magnus Backstedt, who lives in Cardiff with his wife, Megan, and their two children.
The former winner of the Paris-Roubaix Classic had been looking to figure on a flat stage and yesterday was just yards from repeating his stage win of 1998.
Today, the Tour changes tone abruptly after a week on the flat as it enters the Vosges, with a stage to the heart of the mountain range at Gerardmer, which has the 10-mile drag of the Col de la Schlucht just before a nine-mile descent to the finish.
It is perfect terrain for an attacker like the tight-lipped Alexandr Vinokourov, who was asked on Wednesday whether he would go on the offensive here.
"Why not?" he grunted, which for him is an eloquent statement of intent.
Lance Armstrong has been keen to play down Vinokourov's attack in the final kilometres on Thursday, perhaps a sign that the Texan is annoyed at losing 19 seconds to the Kazakh.
"There has been too much made about that move. If it had been dry he wouldn't have been second on the stage," said the overall leader.
"I'll have to keep him in check. I think he's especially motivated for this Tour."
Tomorrow includes two major climbs, the Grand Ballon and the Ballon d'Alsace, but with a long enough run-out to Mulhouse to discourage any serious attacks.
At the very least, however, the weekend will offer some idea of whether Vinokourov, Ullrich and company will offer Armstrong any real competition in the Alps next week.
Leading placings (Luneville-Karlsruhe 228.5km): 1 Robbie McEwen (Aus) Davitamon-Lotto 5hrs 03mins 45secs, 2 Magnus Backstedt (Swe) Liquigas-Bianchi, 3 Bernhard Eisel (Aut) Francaise Des Jeux, 4 Gerrit Glomser (Aut) Lampre-Caffita, 5 Baden Cooke (Aus) Francaise Des Jeux, 6 Fabian Cancellara (Swi) Fassa Bortolo, 7 Tom Boonen (Bel) Quick.Step, 8 Gianluca Bortolami (Ita) Lampre-Caffita, 9 Thor Hushovd (Nor) Credit Agricole, 10 Juan Antonio Flecha (Spa) Fassa Bortolo.
Overall: 1 Lance Armstrong (USA) Discovery Channel 23hrs 01min 56secs, 2 George Hincapie (USA) Discovery Channel at 0.55secs, 3 Alexandre Vinokourov (Kaz) T-Mobile Team at 1min 02secs, 4 Jens Voigt (Ger) Team CSC at 1.04, 5 Bobby Julich (USA) Team CSC at 1.07, 6 Jose Luis Rubiera (Spa) Discovery Channel at 1.14, 7 Yaroslav Popovych (Ukr) Discovery Channel at 1.16, 8 Benjamin Noval (Spa) Discovery Channel at 1.26, 9 Ivan Basso (Ita) Team CSC at same time, 10 Kurt-Asle Arvesen (Nor) Team CSC at 1.32.
Points: 1. Tom Boonen (Belgium/Quick-Step) 133 2. Thor Hushovd (Norway/Credit Agricole) 122 3. Robbie McEwen (Australia/Davitamon-Lotto) 96. Mountains: 1. Fabian Wegmann (Germany/Gerolsteiner) 10 2. Stephane Auge (France/Cofidis) 8 3. Karsten Kroon (Netherlands/Rabobank) 7.Teams: 1. Team CSC 66:46:37, 2. Discovery Channel +2 secs, 3. T-Mobile +2:17.
