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Nicki Sorensen of Saxo Bank won the 12th stage of the Tour de France in Vittel.

The Dane was part of a seven-man breakaway that formed 64 kilometers into the 211.5km ride from Tonnerre which featured six minor climbs.

Sorensen, who won a stage at the Vuelta a Espana in 2005 and has twice been Danish champion, attacked his fellow escapees with 22km to go.

He was followed by Sylvain Calzati, looking to become the fourth Frenchman to win a stage this year, but the 34-year-old burst away from the Agritubel rider with 5.5km remaining.

Sorensen stormed home, finishing 48 seconds ahead of Laurent Lefevre (Bouygues) who won the sprint for second.

The remaining members of the breakaway, Franco Pellizotti (Liquigas), Markus Fothen (Milram), Egoi Martinez (Euskaltel) and Calzati followed with Remi Pauriol of Cofidis fading to finish seventh, 1:33 behind Sorensen.

"The catalyst for my attack with 20 kilometers to go was mainly because we had Pellizotti in the group and he's extremely fast in the sprint," said Sorensen.

"He would probably be unbeatable from our selection so I wanted to go pretty early and make the race hard. In the final straight I had the red car behind me so I couldn't really see how far it was to the other guys but at the end I was really nervous but it all worked out well."

Due to the gradient of the route, with the steep third category Cote de Bourmont coming just 40km from the finish, Mark Cavendish's Columbia-HTC team opted not to chase down the lead septet.

Cavendish beat points jersey rival Thor Hushovd to the line for the battle for eighth place, and after also pipping the Norwegian at the opening intermediate sprint, the Manxman extended his lead to 10 points in the battle for green.

Italy's Rinaldo Nocentini, whose AG2R team rode tempo on the front of the peloton for most of the day, retained the overall leader's yellow jersey ahead of Alberto Contador and Lance Armstrong, second and third overall respectively.

Seven-times champion Armstrong suffered a puncture on the fourth of the climbs, the Cote de Marlaix, but came home in the main group, 5:58 behind the winner.

His Astana team suffered a potential blow when American Levi Leipheimer, fourth overall, crashed towards the end of the stage.

Leipheimer, who will be credited with the bunch's time as his fall happened in the last three kilometres, has bruises on his left thigh, said Astana spokesman Philippe Maertens.

"He went straight to the hotel, he did not look happy," he said.

Australian Cadel Evans, runner-up in the last two editions, also fell off his bike in similar circumstances.

STAGE 13 LIVE at 1pm on Friday on British Eurosport (Sky 410 / Virgin Media 521); Also available on your PC via the Eurosport Player - click on the link under the picture to subscribe

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