morning breakaway and started a solo move for victory about 20 kilometers from the finish. Pineau had also made the breakaway and won the first four climbs, giving him the polka-dot jersey as leader of the mountains classification, before he pulled up and rejoined the peloton behind them. After Chavanel had attacked the leading group and gotten free, fellow breakaway rider Francesco Gavazzi crashed on the Col du Stockeu and set off a chain reaction of crashes that involved some 60 riders from just about every team in the race. Uninvolved and likely unaware, Chavanel rode to an uncontested stage win. Race leader Fabian Cancellara negotiated with Tour officials to neutralize the stage behind Chavanel, and there was no aggressive riding from the peloton for the final few kilometers of the race, and no sprint for second place. Chavanel's nearly four-minute gap over the peloton nonetheless stood, giving him the yellow jersey as well as the stage win. Points classification points for all but Chavanel were also negated, meaning the Frenchman also took the green jersey. The squad also took the lead in the teams classification with this result, making it a very successful day for them. Chavanel was unable to maintain the race lead the next day in stage 3, which due to its inclusion of several cobbled sectors was expected to be very difficult and crash-ridden. He and Pineau both finished in the sixth large group on the road, losing four minutes to the stage winner. He slipped to fifth overall with this result. After the peloton finished together in the next three mass sprint stages, Chavanel found his form again in stage 7. He and Pineau again both made the morning breakaway, with Pineau winning the first five climbs of the day before pulling up. On the fifth climb, the Col de la Croix de la Serra, the two of them forced the pace such that the leading group was fractured. Chavanel again rode to the stage win and yellow jersey alone, with a gap of nearly a minute over Rafael Valls in second. While Chavanel had hoped to retain the jersey for several days after he first won it, he freely admitted after stage 7 that he was unlikely to hold it the next day in a stage that ended with a climb to Morzine-Avoriaz in the Alps. He indeed lost the jersey, finishing nearly 12