2010 Tour de France, Stage 11 to Stage 20#Stage 18
The 18th stage of the 2010 Tour de France on July 23 resulted in 198 km from Salies -de -Bearn to Bordeaux. On this flat stage, there were two intermediate sprints. After the abandonment of Simon Spilak 171 of the 198 registered participants were at the start.
Race course
After 2.1 kilometers neutralized ride the driver reached 13:02 clock the zero kilometer mark. Immediately sparked a septet from the field, which consisted of Matti Breschel, Jaroslaw Popovych, Rémy Di Gregorio, Marcus Burghardt, Carlos Barredo, Linus Gerdemann and Mathieu Perget. After nine kilometers, but has been caught again. Then, a quartet of Daniel Oss, Jérôme Pineau, Benoit Vaugrenard and Matti Breschel could settle. The BMC rider Marcus Burghardt and Alessandro Ballan tried to follow them, however, were not allowed to draw from the field.
In the top group Breschel won the first intermediate sprint. Then her boss stabilized at just over three minutes, while Team HTC - Columbia took control of the field. In the first hour of the race, the outliers covered a 45.4 km. Later, their lead fell back slightly and when riders of Team Lampre turn-on there in the pace of work of the field, their advantage was briefly reduced to under two minutes. Oss drove first on the second sprint. When the team Milram, Lampre and Columbia, the pace increased again in the further course, the projection shrank again. Francesco Reda was meanwhile on the race. While the projection of outliers only was 15 kilometers from the finish half a minute, Pineau was trying to solve at the top, Oss countered. His three companions did not follow him, and were captured shortly afterwards from the field, while Oss bit further on the teeth. This was discovered only 3.5 km from the finish.
Now a brief break in the Sprinter trains for the final sprint. Gerdemann still trying to settle, but broke his attempt already a few hundred meters later on. The Team Sky now led the field. Thor Hushovd opened the sprint, then moved past Mark Cavendish and grabbing himself his fourth stage victory in the Tour de France 2010. At some distance Julian Dean and Alessandro Petacchi rode on the second and third across the finish line. Hushovd dropped back to 14th place and thus had the green jersey again dispose to Petacchi.
Sprints
- Second intermediate sprint in Hostens ( km 150.5 ) ( 68 m )
- Goal in Bordeaux ( 198 km ) ( 5 m)