Boonen sprints to stage glory

Tom Boonen of Belgium took the sixth stage honours today in another day of thrills and spills on the Tour de France.

Boonen, riding for the Quick Step Davitamon team, edged out Australian Stuart O’Grady and German Erik Zabel in a sprint finish after a breakaway bid from Spanish rider Juan Antonio Flecha failed just one kilometre from home.

Flecha had been one of six riders to launch an early breakaway, but as his fellow escapees were reeled in the Spaniard made a solo bid for glory in the 196km run from Bonneval to Angers.

The race was also marred by several falls, with five-times winner Lance Armstrong toppled early in the race.

With his US Postal team forming a praetorian guard around him, the five-time champion remounted and rejoined the race.

Just before the finish – at the ‘flamme rouge’ (red flag) which signals the beginning of the final kilometre – there was a huge pile-up which further disrupted the race and caught yellow jersey wearer Thomas Voeckler of France in its wake.

However, Voeckler still kept the leader’s jersey after the calculations were done by race organisers, while 34th-placed Armstrong was escorted over the finish line by fellow American and team-mate George Hincapie.

The race had come alive earlier when six men launched an audacious breakaway.

Two thirds of the way through the stage, a breakaway group of Flecha, Carlos Da Cruz, Kurt-Asle Arvesen, Alessandro Bertolini, Jimmy Engoulvent and Marc Lotz had established a lead of four minutes and 20 seconds over the peloton.

However, some 50km from home that lead had been reduced by more than a minute as the peloton began to reel in the escapees.

The Brioches-La-Boulangere team, including Frenchman Voeckler, and the AG2R worked hard at the front of the peloton to reduce the gap which soon fell to fewer than two minutes with 30km still to race.

Aversen and Bertolini were the first to be swallowed up by the peloton, but with 14.6km remaining the four remaining leaders still had a lead of 1:26.

US Postal also joined the Brioches and AG2R teams at the front of the pack as the leading quartet were finally caught by their pursuers.

With 6km remaining, Flecha – who won a stage last year in similar fashion - tried to go it alone as the rest of the escapees were caught, but he was foiled by the peloton despite holding them off for a further 5km.

Armstrong, chasing what would be a historic sixth victory in Le Tour, came off his bike early in the sixth stage, with five of his US Postal team-mates then detaching themselves from the peloton to help their team leader recover.

At the end of the stage, Armstrong was still nicely poised in sixth overall and is expected to try and reclaim the yellow jersey, which he surrendered to Voeckler on Thursday, when the race reaches the Pyrenees.

Twice during last year’s Tour Armstrong had to dismount – once in the incident which ended the race of Spain’s Joseba Beloki and also in the Pyrenees when his handlebars got caught in a carrier bag held by a spectator, although the Texan remounted to win the stage.

Italian sprint pair Alessandro Petacchi and Mario Cipollini have both pulled out of the race.

Petacchi and Cipollini are both multiple stage winners of Le Tour in past years, but both usually retire as the race approaches the gruelling mountain stages.

Ireland's Mark Scanlon finished 48th today and stays in 53rd place overall, 12 minutes and five seconds behind the leader.