TOUR DE FRANCE:AT THE Tour, more often than not, the devil is in the small print of the rule book. In the 105 years since the race was founded, the little cruelties of obscure subclauses have provided much of the race's human interest, and yesterday another episode was added to the list when the yellow jersey, Stefan Schumacher, was deprived of the race lead because of an inconsistency in the regulations.
When a Tour cyclist falls off in the final 3km he is usually credited with the same time that is given to the group with whom he was riding when he crashed. That is the universal rule, protecting the overall contenders in flat stage finishes.
The exception is when the Tour finishes on top of a mountain, so it did not apply on yesterday's stage to this second-category summit among the extinct volcanoes of the Massif Central.
It is not a new clause - 32 years ago the Observer's late Tour correspondent Geoffrey Nicholson described this particular quirk as "exceptional, even perverse".
Schumacher would no doubt agree, although he might have expressed his feelings more earthily.
The German was extremely unlucky - or careless, or both - to collide with Kim Kirchen's back wheel as he attempted to move to the left of the leading group with 300 metres to the line as they prepared for the sprint. He lost control of his front wheel and fell heavily on his right side.
By the time he had picked himself up and got to the line, 32 seconds had passed since the Italian Riccardo Ricco had outsprinted Alejandro Valverde and Cadel Evans for the stage win. And that, as the judges saw it, was that.
Bizarrely, given the evidence of replays shown over and again with some smugness by French broadcasters, the German accused Kirchen of bringing him down deliberately; not surprisingly, the Luxembourgeois did not know what to say.
Some might feel that Schumacher has no right to rail against ill fortune. He is lucky to be here at all, having tested positive for amphetamines - taken for recreational purposes - in a police check. The sprinter Tom Boonen had been declared "unwelcome" by the Tour organisers for a cocaine positive - again recreational - and the same logic should have applied to the German.
More importantly, Kirchen had finished 28 seconds ahead of Schumacher in fifth place, and he was duly awarded the yellow jersey.
That made it a second triumphant day in a row for the Columbia team after their stage win on Wednesday for Mark Cavendish, who yesterday rode through the stage with the autobus of non-climbers.
It has been a remarkable year for the squad, who have won 38 races, and there may be more to come if Kirchen holds good in the next two weeks.
Thus far, the gods of form and fortune have been with the Columbia leader and Evans, although Valverde's morale does not appear to have been sapped by the minute he lost in Tuesday's time-trial and the skin he left on the roadside when he crashed on Wednesday. Yesterday, it was his Caisse d'Epargne team who made the running over the Tour's first meaningful climb, the second-category Col de la Croix-Morand, and they drove the peloton along the narrow roads before the climb to the finish and up the final metres.
In the end, the Spaniard was not quite as incisive as he had been on the race's first stage at Plumelec, but the steepness and length of the climb favoured a pure climber such as Ricco, a man of the Giro d'Italia until yesterday and set to return with the Tour to his homeland at the start of the week.
Ricco is an evocative character. When he speaks, the 24-year-old with the russet hair and skin of Irish paleness sounds disconcertingly like his hero, Marco Pantani.
His three mountain-stage wins in the Giro plus his capacity for coining controversial turns of phrase point to him as the 1998 Tour winner's natural heir.
Like Pantani, the Pirate, he has coined his own nickname, the Cobra, for the way he watches and then strikes.
Yesterday, there was venom as well as total commitment in his finish sprint in a stage he was known to have targeted. He rode a poor time-trial on Tuesday and is unlikely to challenge for the overall title, and there are other question marks, at least so far as the drug testers are concerned - Ricco has been tested four times in the past five days.
Looking at the bigger picture, the first summit finish did not claim any major victims, but there are little hints of what may come later. The 2004 Giro winner, Damiano Cunego, dropped 32 seconds, which does not bode well, and David Millar rode below his high expectations and dropped to fifth, 47 seconds behind Kirchen.
That is still close enough to target the yellow jersey today or tomorrow, and the fact that his Garmin team have the American Christian Vandevelde in fourth offers some interesting tactical possibilities.
Guardian Service
Stage Six- Aigurande to Super Besse, 195.5km: 1 R Ricco (Ita) Saunier Duval - Scott 4hrs 57mins 52secs; 2 A Valverde Belmonte (Spa) Caisse d'Epargne at 0.01; 3 C Evans (Aus) Silence - Lotto at same time; 4 F Schleck (Lux) Team CSC - Saxo Bank at 0.04; 5 K Kirchen (Lux) Team Columbia at same time; 6 R Kreuziger (Cze) Liquigas at 0.07; 7 M Duenas Nevado (Spa) Barloworld at same time, 8 C Sastre Candil (Spa) Team CSC - Saxo Bank at same time; 9 D Menchov (Rus) Rabobank at same time, 10 L Piepoli (Ita) Saunier Duval - Scott at same time.
General classification:1 K Kirchen (Lux) Team Columbia 24hrs 30mins 41secs; 2 C Evans (Aus) Silence - Lotto at 0.06; 3 S Schumacher (Ger) Gerolsteiner at 0.16; 4 C Vande Velde (US) Team Garmin-Chipotle p/b H30 at 0.44; 5 D Millar (Brit) Team Garmin-Chipotle p/b H30 at 0.47; 6 T Lovkvist (Swe) Team Columbia at 0.54; 7 D Menchov (Rus) Rabobank at 1.03; 8 A Valverde Belmonte (Spa) Caisse d'Epargne at 1.12; 9 S Devolder (Bel) Quick Step at 1.21; 10 O Pereiro Sio (Spa) Caisse d'Epargne at same time; 11 S Sanchez Gonzalez (Spa) Euskaltel - Euskadi at 1.27; 12 C Sastre Candil (Spa) Team CSC - Saxo Bank at 1.34; 13 M Monfort (Bel) Cofidis - Le Credit par Telephone at 1.40; 14 D Cunego (Ita) Lampre at 1.42; 15 G Hincapie (USA) Team Columbia at 1.45; 16 M Astarloza Chaurreau (Spa) Euskaltel - Euskadi at 1.49; 17 F Schleck (Lux) Team CSC - Saxo Bank at 1.56; 18 A Schleck (Lux) Team CSC - Saxo Bank at 1.58; 19 B Kohl (Aut) Gerolsteiner at 2.03; 20 C Knees (Ger) Team Milram at 2.
King of the Mountains:1 S Chavanel (Fra/Cofidis) 27 points; 2 T Voeckler (Fra/ Bouygues Telecom) 27; 3 R Ricco (Ita/ Saunier Duval) 20; 4 A Valverde (Spa/ Caisse dEpargne) 18; 5 C Evans (Aus/ Silence - Lotto ) 16.
Sprinters:1 K Kirchen (Lux/Columbia) 97 points; 2 T Hushovd (Nor/Credit Agricole) 88; 3 O Freire (Spa/Rabobank) 85; 4 E Zabel (Ger/Milram) 72; 5 A Valverde (Spa/Caisse dEpargne) 71.
Teams:1. Garmin - Chipotle 73 hrs 34 mins 10 secs; 2 Team CSC +19 secs; 3 Columbia +20; 4 Caisse d'Epargne +3:54, 5 Liquigas +4:09.
