Tour de France: Zabel eyes O’Grady’s sprint jersey

With Lance Armstrong marching effortlessly toward his third Tour de France title in succession, the sprinters took centre stage today.

The sprinters’ green jersey has been simmering in the background in recent stages while the enthralling contest between Armstrong and arch-rival Jan Ullrich has drawn all the attention.

But in a sun-baked stage 17 today, which was won by Belgian rider Serge Baguet, another fascinating two-man duel continued to unfold between Credit Agricole’s Australian rider Stuart O’Grady and German Erik Zabel of the Telekom team.

O’Grady is the current holder of the jersey with 176 points, and he has worn it since stage eight, but Zabel, who won the sprint jersey last year, is just 11 points adrift and is closing on the Aussie with each passing stage.

The German finished one place ahead of O’Grady for the second stage in succession today.

His sixth-placed finish earned him an extra point more than O’Grady today but with only three stages to go the Telekom man will have to step up his challenge if he wants to retain his sprint crown.

Baguet’s first ever Tour stage win came after he had joined a breakaway group of 16 riders with just over five kilometres gone in the race.

After some gruelling mountain stages the Tour began to wind down and today’s fairly flat 194 kilometre route from Brive-la-Gallarde gave the 145 riders left the opportunity for a comfortable ride.

However, any hopes of an easy ride were out of the window when the 16-man escape group powered ahead.

Italian Massimilano Lelli had led out the initial escape and it waali’s Jakob Piil and Baguet, who kept it going when 13 of the riders dropped off the pace.

And with the peloton closing fast in the final stretch Baguet went for glory and powered past an exhausted Lelli who had no power left in his legs.

Despite the continued challenge of Piil, Baguet held firm to clinch the stage in four hours 13 minutes and 36 seconds.

Piil took second, while Lelli claimed third spot a further five seconds behind.

"I still can’t believe that I’ve won a stage of the Tour de France, it’s unbelievable," said an ecstatic Baguet after his win.

"It was a very hard day for me but I rode with the Lelli and knew that I would get the better of him at the end.

"I also knew about the slight hill at the finish and thought that as long as I stuck with him Lelli I could beat him at the line.

"Lelli was waiting for his chance, but he didn’t take and I seized the opportunity."

There was no change in the overall classification with Armstrong and Ullrich crossing the line together in the middle of the peloton.

The Texan still holds a commanding lead of five minutes, five seconds over Ullrich, who lies second.

Andrei Kivliev is third overall, a further eight seconds behind Ullrich.