Sylvain Calzati of the AG2R team has handed the hosts their second stage victory of the Tour de France after winning the 181-kilometre eighth stage from St Meen Le Grand.

Ukrainian Serguei Gonchar, of T-Mobile, retained the race leader's yellow jersey with a 1min 00sec lead on American Floyd Landis ahead of Monday's rest day.

A day after Gonchar and T-Mobile team shook up the peloton by dominating the seventh stage time trial to take command of the race, this stage, finally, bore witness to a successful breakaway.

In the end, Calzati capped a brave solo attack Sunday with over 30 kilometers to race to cross the finish line alone with a two-minute lead on his earlier breakaway companions Patrice Halgand and Kjell Carlstrom.

Despite his Italian-sounding name, it gave France a welcome second stage win of the race after Jimmy Casper's victory on stage one, and on the day they are bidding to win football's World Cup.

Perhaps as a result of their successive efforts over nearly a week of consistent efforts, the sprinters decided not to chase down the ultimately decisive breakaway which formed after 47 kilometers of racing.

All the big teams, except Discovery Channel, had a rider in the breakaway and none of them were real yellow jersey threats.

It meant the peloton could sit back, and keep the group within relatively easy reach, which they did as the leaders went on to build a lead of seven and a half minutes after the 65-kilometre mark.

The Phonak team of American Floyd Landis, who now have one eye on the yellow jersey as he is in second place overall behind Gonchar, started to get twitchy and their turn setting the tempo dropped the deficit to 6:15 20 kilometers further on.

However none of the teams in the chasing bunch appeared motivated to give chase and the group managed to keep their advantage steady until, in the closing 30 kilometers, Calzati decided to up the ante.

The 27-year-old Frenchman pulled away from his six-man group on a small climb. Despite attempts by Halgand and Carlstrom to follow suit, Calzati's turn of pace soon had them trailing.

With the peloton at over two and a half minutes behind him with 15 kilometers still to ride, Calzati's victory chances looked solid as he drove for the finish line with a favorable cross wind pushing him on.

The AG2R rider held his nerve to finish in style, claiming his first stage win of the race.

For Calzati - a former winner of the prestigious Tour de l'Avenir - the victory had special meaning.

"It's fabulous, especially when you think I was the last rider to be picked for the Tour de France team," he said. "Last year I crashed out injured, but today I told the team's mechanics that I was going to be at the front."
 
(AFP July 10, 2006)