Roux wins hilly stage and takes the lead

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FDJ's Anthony Roux scored his second victory in Pré-en-Pail, the town of the Mayenne province where he previously won a stage of the Circuit de la Sarthe two years ago. His win came in the part of France from where his employers, Marc and Yvon Madiot, hail. Roux was the fastest of a front group of seven riders and preceded Blel Kadri of AG2R-La Mondiale and his FDJ teammate Pierrick Fedrigo. David Millar (Garmin Cervelo) was the only foreigner of the front group and finished sixth.

"I'm extremely happy," said a delighted Roux at the finish. "Today my legs were fired up. But I must admit that I made it to the front at the end because Millar, who got dropped, helped me come across. Without him, I wouldn't have won."

Thanks to the time bonus, Roux took the first position in the GC ahead of Millar, who was second after the time trial but dropped to third today while Kadri moved up to second place overall.

"At the end, I was at the limit," Millar said. "I managed to come back, but these guys were riding too fast for me to win. However, I'm happy to be racing at the front again."

Previous race leader Daniele Bennati failed to stay with the attackers in the climb of the Mont des Avaloirs, which racers ascended five times. "It was too hard for me," he said. "My team had worked a lot yesterday and the day before."

FDJ and Europcar added their forces to those of Leopard-Trek to ride behind the two breakaway riders Svein Tuft (Spidertech) and David Zabriskie (Garmin-Cervélo), who had attacked after 14 kilometres and reached a maximum lead of 7:10.

Under the sun and in 28-degree Celsius temperatures, Zabriskie gave up and Tuft only got caught with 25km to go.

Fedrigo and Thomas Voeckler (Europcar) jumped from the bunch and were followed by Alexandre Geniez (Skil-Shimano), Nicolas Vogondy (Cofidis), Millar and Kadri. Roux counter-attacked on his own and was lucky to find Millar to bring him to the leaders.

"I don't want to think about tomorrow yet," said the Frenchman ahead of the fifth and final stage. "For now, I just want to enjoy the moment. This is really good for my morale. I've had a persistent injury on my heel at the end of February. For five weeks, I've been almost unable to ride my bike, so I'm very happy with this victory."

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