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| | Friday, 7 July, 2000, 21:53 GMT 22:53 UK Agnolutto breaks away for win Agnolutto: A long, lone breakaway ends in success A heroic lone breakaway ended a two-year drought for home riders in the Tour de France as Christophe Agnolutto won the 205.5km seventh stage from Tours to Limoges. The 30-year-old Parisian went solo for 128.5km to give the host country their first stage victory since Jacky Durand won in Montauban in 1998. Agnolutto was a surprise winner of the 1997 Tour of Switzerland, when race favourites failed to chase him early in the race thinking he was no threat. He tried his luck again on the Tours-Limoges section and won by one minute 11 seconds. Fantastic The AG2R team rider said, "I'm very happy. I've had to wait for two years to win a race again. A Tour stage, for a Frenchman, it's fantastic. "I had warned my team mates I would try something today. I went on my own because I'm not very fast in sprint finishes. "I don't win very often, but it's always big ones - it's great."
Italian Alberto Elli retained his overall leader's yellow jersey on the mostly flat stage, made treacherous by heavy showers and strong winds. He holds a 12-second advantage over Frenchman Fabrice Gougot. Cramp Agnolutto's effort was especially courageous as he had to stretch many times during his three-hour solo to fight cramp. German Erik Zabel, third behind Agnolutto and Wust, was unable to celebrate his 30th birthday with victory in his first sprint finish on the Tour for three years. Wust also denied him the consolation of taking the points leader's green jersey.
Agnolutto's win was the result of the first successful solo break in this year's Tour, which claimed its first victims one week after the start from the Futuroscope theme park. Australian sprinter Stuart O'Grady pulled out with a broken collarbone after he was involved in a crash near the finish of Thursday's sixth stage to Tours. Veteran Dane Jesper Skibby also retired because of a lingering knee injury. All dope tests made on the first three stages were negative, the International Cycling Union said. Corticoids were found in some urine samples but the riders involved had medical prescriptions. | |
See also:  06 Jul 00 | Tour de France 06 Jul 00 | Tour de France 06 Jul 00 | Tour de France 07 Jul 00 | Tour de France Top Tour de France stories now: Links to more Tour de France stories are at the foot of the page. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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