Cycling: Both the French and Italians have a saying which translates as "Never two without three" but in Italy they add "and the fourth comes along by itself". That summed up Alessandro Petacchi's arrival here yesterday. The Italian has now taken four sprints out of the four he has contested in this Tour, and the latest was the most impressive yet.
As he did at Nevers the previous day, Petacchi came from way back in the straining pack, but such is the power with which he can burst free of the rest that he had time to turn round as he sped over the line to see what had become of the opposition.
Petacchi has thus equalled Mario Cipollini's achievement of winning four stages in the first week of the Tour. Even more surprisingly, with his six stage wins in the Giro d'Italia he has now taken a total of 10 stages in the two biggest races in one season, a feat only managed before by Eddy Merckx.
Even so the Italian is complaining that his lack of racing since the Giro has in fact left him short of condition - he was almost left behind by the peloton on the day's main climb yesterday - and he is unlikely to make it through the Alps.
"I'm very tired, I'm having difficulty recovering and I'm not in my best condition," he said yesterday. If this is how Petacchi performs when he is below par, heaven help the opposition when he is firing on all cylinders.
His task was facilitated yesterday by a series of minor crashes among his fellow sprinters as the field sped through France's second city yesterday. The first, five kilometres out, disposed of Robbie McEwen, who relinquished the green points jersey to the Italian, and of Erik Zabel, who has injured a wrist. The second saw off the Estonian Jaan Kirsipuu.
Each of the early road stages in this Tour has followed an almost identical pattern: a lengthy escape by cyclists from the French teams, which gains a massive lead but is safely brought to order before the finish, where the sprinters do their worst.
There was a slight, and suspenseful, variation yesterday, as one of the two escapees was the Australian Stuart O'Grady, who rides for the Credit Agricole team, and he and Anthony Geslin of Brioches la Boulangere survived to the final nail-biting kilometre down the dead straight Avenue Jean Jaures.
Geslin is the man who breached riders' etiquette when he "grilled the ravito" on Tuesday, breaking away to upset the peloton's digestion of the cakes and energy bars handed up at the feed zone, but yesterday he did not repeat the faux-pas, bursting clear with O'Grady, five years ago the winner of the PruTour of Britain, shortly before the first intermediate sprint, with the "ravito" 40 miles away.
O'Grady and Geslin were still in the lead, some 100 miles into the stage, when the peloton climbed into the area known as Le Forez, the watershed between the rivers Saone and Rhone.
On the other side, suddenly, the race entered the south: the leafy hedges and placid cows of the Charolais were replaced by parched yellow fields, Beaujolais vineyards, and houses with shallow, red-tiled roofs. The Col des Echarmeaux, marking the top of the divide, rated just a third-category climb and topped out at a mere 2,100 feet.
It was mountaineering without tears; by this evening in Morzine many eyes will be watering.
