Tour contenders fall into place as race leaves Alps

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BRIANCON, France -- This will be a rushed dispatch: I arrived late to this ancient city in the southern Alps as the result of some travel misadventures that I will share later this week (suffice it to say that the doors of a train closed on my fingertips while a French conductor met my pleas with an impassive stare that reminded me of Merseault from The Stranger).

I rolled into Briancon about two minutes ahead of stage nine winner Juan Mauricio Soler Hernandez, a heretofore anonymous rider best known for having the longest name in the race. (Discovery director Johan Bruyneel found it more convenient to refer to him as "the Colombian guy.")

Soler rides for Barloworld, a team named for a South African company, registered in England, managed by Italians. They're a wild card team, which means it only got into the race by the skin of its teeth. A result like today's makes their season. Soler attacked halfway up a monstrous, beyond category Alp called the Col du Galibier. He caught up with the formidable quintet of riders -- including Yaroslav Popovych, who attacked early in the stage and at one point held a lead of one minute -- then simply rode through them. Soler was first over the Galibier and first over the finish line in this, Europe's highest city, whose motto, the Tour's always helpful Guide touristique informs us, is "small but famous."

The truth, of course, is that Soler was allowed to go up the road, because he presents no threat to the race leaders. Behind him on the Galibier, there were some highly interesting developments:

The yellow jersey now belongs to Mikael Rasmussen, the painfully spare Dane who rides for Rabobank. Before this race started, conventional wisdom that his teammate Denis Menchov posed more of a threat to win it. But six miles from the summit of the Galibier, Alejandro Valverde of Caisse D'epargne detonated the peloton with a sudden, sustained attack. Among those able to respond: Rasmussen, CSC's Carlos Sastre, Discovery's Levi Leipheimer and Alberto Contador; T-Mobile's Andreas Klöden, who is riding very well despite having fractured his coccyx earlier in the race.

Lacking the punch to hang with that select group: Menchov, French favorite Christophe Moreau, and, sadly (to me) Astana's Alexandre Vinokourov. I say sadly because I'm convinced he's still suffering from the effects of a violent crash last week. Vino lost another 2 ½ minutes to Rasmussen on Tuesday, and now trails Rasmussen by a whopping 8:05. Yes, the wily Kazakh could go off in the Pyrenees next week, but it looks as if Klöden is now the Astana rider to be reckoned with.

His former teammates at T-Mobile, meanwhile, must be wondering how they've offended the cycling gods. T-Mobile has taken one of the most proactive stances against doping in cycling, and this is their reward: on Sunday, when Rasmussen took the yellow jersey, T-Mobile captain Michael Rodgers missed a turn on the tricky descent down Col du Cormet, flew over a protective fence and badly injured his wrist, abandoning shortly thereafter.

After that stage, T-Mobile's Mark Cavendish, a 22-year-old Brit, withdrew from the race, having crashed twice in the first week. Also after the stage, Patrik Sinkewitz was riding his bike to the team hotel when he took out a septuagenarian spectator who'd been looking the other way: Sinkewitz suffered "facial injuries," including a broken nose: his Tour is over. The man he struck ended up in a coma, from which he has emerged.

On Tuesday, with T-Mobile down to six riders, Marcus Burghardt t-boned a Labrador that darted onto the course: the collision tacoed his wheel, sending the rider over the handlebars. He remounted, and kept racing. Neither Burghardt nor the dog appeared to be injured, although, as the AP's Jerome Pugmire informed me in the press room just now, "It is not known whether the dog will take the start tomorrow."

Right now, I'm literally being kicked out of the press room. More comprehensive reports to follow, I promise. And I'll try to update you on the condition of that dog.