Cycling: Today's rest day on the Mediterranean coast will be even more welcome than usual. After the crashes of the opening days, the heatwave forced 23 of the field to quit in the three Alpine stages and the race doctor Gerard Porte says he expects only 125 of the 198 starters to make it to Paris if the canicule continues.
Yesterday another one-time favourite quit: the Italian Stefano Garzelli, who has a throat infection.
Dr Porte's recommendation is that the smaller cyclists should take to a chaise longue and drink lots of water, which seems reasonable after riding in temperatures nudging 40 degrees celsius.
Yesterday's finale was a seaside affair, a mini-tour of the Vieux Port and the Corniche, with tantalising glimpses of the beaches. The peloton entered Jean de Florette country with the domestiques making constant visits to their team cars to refill their riders' water bottles.
From the mountains to the sea: this was a classic "transition" stage and it went to the Dane Jakob Piil, who made his mark on a similar leg last year, to Bourg-en-Bresse, by taking third after pulling his shoeplate out of his pedal in the finish sprint. His groin landed heavily on his saddle, so Bourg-en-Bresse probably left its mark on Piil as well, but yesterday he kept his feet to outsprint the Italian Fabio Sacchi outside the Stade Velodrome.
The pair had escaped the day's nine-man breakaway by the ferry port, and they had enough time entering the final straight to shake hands. So vast was the leeway given to the nine that, as Piil and Sacchi were finishing, the peloton was still sweating 10 miles back down the course.
The centenary Tour has not seen the slightest whiff of a drug scandal, but another perennial, the political demonstrators, arrived yesterday. Some 40 miles from the finish a group of about 20 activists from the Confederation Paysanne sat down in the road in front of the peloton waving banners calling for the release of their leader Jose Bove, halting Lance Armstrong and company for a minute or so, but so huge was the Marseille nine's lead that it barely mattered.
Armstrong's overall lead remains a mere 21 seconds and the battle for the green points jersey is hotting up. Last year this was nip and tuck between the Australian Robbie McEwen and the six-times winner Erik Zabel of Germany, but there is now a new candidate, the second-stage winner Baden Cooke, who has a nine-point lead over McEwen.
Yesterday the pair sprinted elbow-to-elbow into the finish for 10th place, with Cooke a few inches in front to add a single point to his lead. Intriguingly, David Millar placed himself among the "train" formed by Cooke's team-mates in the FDJeux.com squad in the final kilometre, and the Scot led out the sprint at ferocious speed.
"Cookie and Brad McGee are among my best friends, and I had a quiet day so I thought why not? I've never done that before; I hit 70 kph and it was cool."
The rumour mill has already linked Millar to a possible transfer to FDJeux.com from Cofidis for next year, and this will merely heighten the speculation.
STAGE 10 (Gap-Marseille, 219.5km): 1 J Piil (Den) Team CSC five hours 9 minutes 33 seconds, 2 F Sacchi (Ita) Saeco, 3 B De Groot (Ned) Rabobank both at 0.49 secs, 4 D Nazon (Fra) Brioches La Boulangere at 2 mins 07secs, 5 R Haselbacher (Aut) Gerolsteiner, 6 P Gaumont (Fra) Cofidis, Credit Par Telephone, 7 S Baguet (Bel) Lotto Domo, 8 V Garcia Acosta (Spa) iBanesto.com, 9 J Enrique Gutierrez (Spa) Kelme-Costa Blanca all at 5.06, 10 B Cooke (Aus) FDJeux.com at 21.23, 11 R McEwen (Aus) Lotto Domo, 12 E Zabel (Ger) Team Telekom, 13 F Rodriguez (USA) Vini Caldirola-So.Di, 14 F Guidi (Ita) Team Bianchi, 15 G Glomser (Aut) Saeco, 16 J-P Nazon (Fra) Jean Delatour, 17 C Edaleine (Fra) Jean Delatour, 18 S O'Grady (Aus) Credit Agricole, 19 L Paolini (Ita) Quick.Step-Davitamon, 20 S Dumoulin (Fra) Jean Delatour all at 1.49. Selected Other: 54 David Millar (Brit) Cofidis, Credit Par Telephone at 21.49.
OVERALL (yellow jersey): 1 L Armstrong (USA) US Postal-Berry Floor 45 hours 46 minutes 22 seconds, 2 A Vinokourov (Kaz) Team Telekom at 0.21secs, 3 I Mayo (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi at 1.02, 4 F Mancebo (Spa) iBanesto.com at 1.37, 5 T Hamilton (USA) Team CSC at 1.52, 6 J Ullrich (Ger) Team Bianchi at 2.10, 7 I Basso (Ita) Fassa Bortolo at 2.25, 8 R Heras (Spa) US Postal-Berry Floor at 2.28, 9 H Zubeldia (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi at 3.25, 10 D Menchov (Rus) iBanesto.com at 3.45.
POINTS STANDINGS (green jersey) 1. B Cooke (Australia) FDJeux.com 140 points 2. R McEwen (Australia) Lotto 131 3. E Zabel (Germany) Team Telekom 112 4. T Hushovd (Norway) Credit Agricole 107 5. JP Nazon (France) Jean Delatour 100 6. S O'Grady (Australia) Credit Agricole 94 7. L Paolini (Italy) Quick Step 94 8. O Freire (Spain) Rabobank 83 9. R Vainstains (Latvia) Caldirola 81 10. P Bettini (Italy) Quick Step 72
KING OF THE MOUNTAIN (polka-dot jersey): 1. R Virenque (France) Quick Step 135 2. J Jaksche (Germany) ONCE 75 3. L Armstrong (U.S.) US Postal 74 4. I Parra (Colombia) Kelme 71 5. A Garmendia (Spain) Team Bianchi 62 6. F Mancebo (Spain) iBanesto.com 61 7. R Aldag (Germany) Team Telekom 61 8. D Di Luca (Italy) Saeco 56 9. C Moreau (France) 54 10. I Mayo (Spain) Euskatel 53.
TEAM POINTS: 1. Team CSC 134:32:58 2. iBanesto.com 27 3. Euskatel 11:09 4. US Postal 15:20 5. Cofidis 21:16.
