Tondo scores one for Cervelo

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The Cervelo TestTeam's new Spanish climber Xavier Tondo scored a big win for the squad with a solo drive into Tourrettes-sur-Loup today. He escaped on the Col de Vence, the category 1 climb traversed with 33km to go, and managed to just hold off the chasing peloton led to the line by Alejandro Valverde.

Alberto Contador finished safely in the main bunch to hold onto his overall lead in the general classification.

"It's incredible for me to win," Tondo exclaimed after the finish. "It was a difficult stage today, it was fast all day. Yesterday I made a big mistake - I didn't follow the change in rhythm on the climb and was at the back of a group and lost two and a half minutes.

"But that gave me more opportunity to go with the breakaway today."

Tondo was chased by Lampre's Damiano Cunego, but rather than let the Italian make the bridge and help with the work to stay clear, the Spaniard stayed on the gas to stay away solo.

"I know that Cunego is a good sprinter and it would not have been good for me," Tondo said.

His gap fell from over a minute down to just seconds on the line, but it was enough to give the Spaniard his first win since the start of last year when he won a stage in the Tour de San Luis.

Big names go on a big break

Tondo made his move from a large breakaway which had escaped early in the stage. The 23-man move included some of the more prominent riders in Paris-Nice - Levi Leipheimer (RadioShack), Damiano Cuengo (Lampre) and Sylvain Chavanel (Quick Step).

The overall lead of Alberto Contador was threatened by Chavanel when the gap grew to nearly two minutes, but the break's lead never grew too large thanks to the contributions of Garmin-Transitions, who had missed the move, and later Caisse d'Epargne who were interested in keeping the race close for Alejandro Valverde.

The break consisted of Amael Moinard (Cofidis), Levi Leipheimer and Tiago Machado (RadioShack), Damiano Cunego (Lampre-Farnese Vini), Sebastien Turgot and Cyril Gautier (Bbox Bouygues Telecom), Dimitri Champion (AG2R), Alexandr Kolobnev and Eduard Vorganov (Katusha), Mathieu Perget (Caisse d'Epargne), Chris Sorensen (Saxo Bank), Dimitri Fofonov (Astana), Maxime Monfort and Tony Martin (HTC-Columbia), Sandy Casar and Mikael Cherel (FDJeux), Cyril Dessel (AG2R La Mondiale), Sylvain Chavanel and Kevin Seeldrayers (Quick Step), Xavier Tondo (Cervelo Test Team), Jurgen Van den Broeck (Omega Pharma Lotto), Romain Sicard (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Steve Cummings (Team Sky), Simon Geschke (Skil Shimano).

The move stayed intact over a series of lesser classified mountains - there were seven in total leading up to the big one, the Col de Vence, a category 1 monster crested with just 32.5km to go.

It was on the slopes of that climb that the race heated up, with Tondo leading the charge followed closely by Cunego and Gautier.

Kolobnev and Chavanel tried to get on terms with the attack, but either gambled the group would help bring it back on the descent or could not match the pace of Tondo.

The Spaniard upped his effort and managed to shed Cunego and Gautier, then plowed ahead full steam to the top of the Col de Vence.

Gautier quickly returned to the chasing group while Cunego kept chasing on the quick descent, but never closed the dozen seconds to the stage leader.

As the road leveled out, Cunego began losing more time, while the pace in the peloton shot up under the attacks of several riders.

Chris Horner (RadioShack) and Sébastien Hinault (AG2R La Mondiale) gained a small lead, but were then pulled back by the relentless pace of the peloton.

Thomas Voeckler (Bouygues Telecom), perhaps not wanting to be cast in the shadows of another Frenchman, countered the move and brought along Chavanel and Fofonov.

Over the top of the Col de Vence, the chase group came back together, then split again as a group containing previous race leader Jens Voigt (Saxo Bank) broke free.

Tondo, meanwhile, was resisting all efforts to be brought back into the fold, and as he soldiered along solo up front, the chasing group came back together for good inside the final 5km.

Cofidis' young stud Rein Taaramae made a brief attack in the final kilometres, but it was Valverde who took the runner-up slot on the line ahead of points classification leader and double stage winner Peter Sagan.

Contador finished the stage without incident, conserving his yellow jersey and his energies for the challenging final stage to Nice tomorrow.