This was a largely flat stage, but featured a category 2 climb 16 km from the finish. A twenty-rider breakaway after 9 km never gained more than three minutes advantage over a peloton paced by Team Milram and Rabobank, and an attack by Leonardo Duque after 110 km reduced the group to five, his companions being José Luis Arrieta, Iván Gutiérrez, David Millar and Yaroslav Popovych. This smaller group stayed away from a chase group of about 40 rider...
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This was a largely flat stage, but featured a category 2 climb 16 km from the finish. A twenty-rider breakaway after 9 km never gained more than three minutes advantage over a peloton paced by Team Milram and Rabobank, and an attack by Leonardo Duque after 110 km reduced the group to five, his companions being José Luis Arrieta, Iván Gutiérrez, David Millar and Yaroslav Popovych. This smaller group stayed away from a chase group of about 40 riders that included all but one of the top 20 in the general classification, and some of the top sprinters in the race, for a further 35 km, but were caught before the final climb started in earnest. Near the top of that climb, Laurent Lefèvre and world champion Alessandro Ballan attempted a breakaway, but they were chased down by Team Columbia-HTC, whose sprinter Mark Cavendish again took the stage victory. A split in the group as it crosed the line meant that Lance Armstrong gained four seconds over the rest of the contenders for a place on the final podium in Paris. [1
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