Stage 13

The road

At the start

Pau to Lourdes, over the Aubisque

Samuel Sánchez won on Luz-Ardiden while the Schlecks probed Contador all the way up it without landing anything, and Thomas Voeckler is still in yellow — 1:49 clear of Fränk Schleck and 2:06 of Cadel Evans. Gert Steegmans does not start. Today is short and stacked at the front: the hors-catégorie Aubisque, then the Soulor, then thirty-three downhill kilometres into Lourdes. A day made for a breakaway.

How it was won

1. 1127 km to go

   Klöden goes home

   The racing out of Pau is frantic — groups going, groups being caught, groups countering — and it is too much for Andreas Klöden, whose back has been wrecked by yesterday's crash. He climbs off inside half an hour and leaves RadioShack with five riders.

2. 257 km to go

   A sprinter attacks the Aubisque

   On the lower ramps of an hors-catégorie climb the world champion attacks from the back of a ten-man break. Nobody follows him at first. Then Roy comes across, above the spa town of Eaux-Bonnes.

3. 352 km to go

   Roy leaves him

   Nine kilometres from the summit the Frenchman kicks and Hushovd cannot hold it. Moncoutié comes past too, closing to within a hundred metres of the leader, and the rainbow jersey is suddenly riding for third.

4. 443 km to go

   Over the Aubisque

   Roy leads over by fifty-three seconds, with Hushovd at 2:03 and the peloton more than eight minutes down. It is his fifth attack in thirteen stages, and this one has the whole Tour watching.

5. 533 km to go

   The Soulor, and thirty-three downhill kilometres

   Roy takes a few more seconds on the uncategorised rise over the Soulor pass. Coming off it Hushovd catches Moncoutié, and the two of them begin to descend the way only Hushovd can.

6. 610 km to go

   Eighteen seconds

   A minute and five seconds at twenty kilometres, less than half that at fifteen, eighteen seconds here. The road kicks up a couple of times on the approach to Lourdes and for a few minutes it looks as though Roy might just hold on.

7. 7At the line

   Hushovd alone in Lourdes

   He goes past and rides in on his own in the rainbow bands — the ninth Tour stage of his career and, he says, the best moment of it: a world champion beaten out of the sprints all week, winning over the Aubisque instead. Roy rolls in third almost in tears, with the combativity prize and the mountains jersey for consolation.

The result