Tour de France - Vasseur gives France victory
Eurosport - Thu, 19 Jul 09:07:00 2007
Quickstep veteran Cedric Vasseur won stage ten of the Tour de France in Marseille, handing the host nation their first victory in this year's race.
The 36-year-old edged out compatriot Sandy Casar by the smallest of margins at the end of a 229.5km transition stage from Tallard.
It was a second Tour stage victory for Vasseur who won stage five in 1997 in La Charte when he was a member of Chris Boardman's Gan team.
The pair were part of an 11-man group that formed after 80km and were afforded a 14 minute lead with none of the members of the escape a threat in the overall standings.
Marcus Burghardt (T-Mobile) initiated the break on the fourth category climb of the Côte de Châteauneuf-Val-Saint Donat after 55km.
He was then joined by the French trio of Patrice Halgand (Credit Agricole), Casar and Vaseur, compatriot Jens Voigt (CSC), Spain's Juan Antonio Flecha (Rabobank), the Italian duo of Paolo Bossoni (Lampre) and Michal Albasini (Liquigas) plus Belgian Staf Scheirlinckx (Cofidis), Aleksandre Kuschynski (Liquigas) of Belarus and Ukraine's Andriy Grivko (Milram).
They worked together until the third category climb of the Côte des Bastides with 25km remaining when Halgand, Albasini and Casar went clear and they were caught on the descent by Voigt and Vasseur.
They were still together with 300m remaining when Vasseur sprung clear on the right, holding off Francaise Des Jeux's Casar by the width of a tyre.
Sébastien Chavanel led the peloton over the line 10:36 behind with all the favourites including race leader Michael Rasmussen safely in the bunch.
EurosportTour Standings
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Stage
Name Nat. Team Time Stefan SCHUMACHER 
GST 00:35:44 Kim KIRCHEN 
THR +00:00:18 David MILLAR 
TSL +00:00:18 Cadel EVANS 
SIL +00:00:27 Fabian CANCELLARA 
CSC +00:00:33 Denis MENCHOV 
RAB +00:00:34 Jens VOIGT CSC +00:00:35 Christian VANDEVELDE 
TSL +00:00:37 George HINCAPIE THR +00:00:41 Vincenzo NIBALI 
LIQ +00:00:47 -
Yellow
Name Nat. Team Time Stefan SCHUMACHER GST 14:04:41 Kim KIRCHEN THR +00:00:12 David MILLAR TSL +00:00:12 Cadel EVANS SIL +00:00:21 Fabian CANCELLARA CSC +00:00:33 Christian VANDEVELDE TSL +00:00:37 George HINCAPIE THR +00:00:41 Thomas LÖVKVIST 
THR +00:00:47 Vincenzo NIBALI LIQ +00:00:58 José Ivan GUTIERREZ 
GCE +00:01:01 -
Green
Name Nat. Team Points Kim KIRCHEN THR 81 Thor HUSHOVD 
C.A 64 Oscar FREIRE RAB 55 Alejandro VALVERDE GCE 49 Erik ZABEL MRM 46 Samuel DUMOULIN 
COF 43 Robert HUNTER 
BAR 40 Jérôme PINEAU BTL 39 William FRISCHKORN TSL 38 Romain FEILLU AGR 36 -
Mountain
Name Nat. Team Points Thomas VOECKLER BTL 19 Sylvain CHAVANEL COF 11 Björn SCHRÖDER MRM 9 David DE LA FUENTE SDV 4 Lilian JEGOU FDJ 3 Christophe MOREAU AGR 3 Geoffroy LEQUATRE AGR 1 David LELAY AGR 1 David ARROYO GCE 1