Orica GreenEdge pipped Mark Cavendish’s Omega Pharma-Quick Step squad by a single second to win today’s team time trial in the Tour de France and make it two stage victories in as many days.

WHAT does it take to create havoc in the capital of the most powerful country in the world? Anthrax? An orange terror alert? Massive anti-war protests? Another day like September 11, 2001? These days, it’s a disgruntled farmer in a tractor.

Scotland scrum-half Andy Nicol has been given a clean bill of health in the build up to Saturday's Six Nations encounter with Italy at Murrayfield.