The Hindu : Sport : Thor Hushovd wins rain-hit sixth stage

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Thor Hushovd wins rain-hit sixth stage

BARCELONA: Norway’s Thor Hushovd defied the rain and the treacherous conditions to win the sixth stage of the Tour de France in a mass sprint finish on Thursday.

Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland kept the Yellow Jersey, with just a split-second lead over seven-time champion Lance Armstrong after the race entered Spain with a 181.5-kilometer (112.8-mile) trek from Gerona to Barcelona.

Hushovd, of the Cervelo team, collected his seventh Tour stage win by edging out two Spaniards — three-time World champion Oscar Freire in second, and Jose Joaquin Rojas in third.

“I’m just too, too happy,” said Hushovd, who won the best sprinter’s jersey at the 2005 Tour. “It’s true that it was a nervous day too, because it was raining and the roads were slippery.”

They clocked 4 hours, 21 minutes, 33 seconds for the stage, the same time as 40 other riders including Armstrong and Cancellara in the main pack of favourites.

Breakaway riders including Britain’s David Millar repeatedly attacked, only to be reeled in by the finish. He was caught with little more than one km (0.6 mile) left to go.

The pack set off at a swift pace of about 47 km (29 miles) an hour for the first 25 km. Breakaway attempts by riders such as Americans David Zabriskie and George Hincapie were quickly reeled in by the peloton.

Millar was in either alone in the lead or in the breakaway group for about three-quarters of the stage, and at one point had enough of a gap on Cancellara to be the overall leader in mid-stage.

Two crashes marred the last 10 km (6 miles) — one involving Japanese rider Yukiya Arashiro, another involving former World champion Tom Boonen of Belgium, one of Hushovd’s main rivals. — AP

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