helping Philippe Thys (handing him a water bottle), therefore Henri Pélissier was leading the race. It had not helped Thys however, because he had to abandon the race in the first stage after a large crash. In the beginning of the race, Henri and Francis Pélissier were the best. They both finished before the rest in stage two, with Henri crossing the line first. In the third stage, Henri, leading the race, wanted to stop. Organizer Desgrange did all he could to change Pélissier's mind, and finally Pélissier started to race again. He was already 45 minutes behind, and the next three hours he was chasing the rest. He finally caught up, and finished second in the sprint, after his brother Francis. After that victory, Henri Pélissier said that he was a thoroughbred and the rest of the cyclists were work horses, which made the other cyclists angry. During that third stage, Léon Scieur punctured four times, and lost two hours. In the fourth stage, the rest of the cyclists (only 25 were still in race) took revenge on the Pélissier brothers. When they had to change bicycles, everybody else sped away from them. Henri Pélissier chased the rest, but was then ordered by Desgrange to stop working together with other cyclists in his pursuit. In the end, Henri Pélissier had lost more than 35 minutes, and his brother Francis over three hours. The Pélissier brothers were angry at the organisation and left the race. Jean Alavoine won the stage, and Eugène Christophe became the new leader in the general classification. Alavoine would also win the fifth stage, the longest ever in history at . Christophe was still in Grenoble at the start of stage eleven, when, at 2am tour organiser Henri Desgrange gave him a yellow jersey, so that he could easily be recognized. The colour was inspired by the colour of the organizing newspaper l'Auto, although another explanation is that other colours were not available in the post-war shortage. Previously the leader would wear a green armband. Christophe was not happy with his yellow jersey, and other cyclists called him a canary. At that point in the race, it was likely that Christophe would stay the leader until the end of the Tour de France, because he remained in that yellow jersey after the Pyrenees and the Alps. In the penultimate stage, Firmin Lambot, who was in second