2009 Tour de France…
LONDON, England (BBC) – Serguei Ivanov broke away at a key stage to claim victory in the 14th stage of the Tour de France, which was marred by the death of a spectator yesterday.

The Russian champion from the Katusha team escaped from a group of 12 riders with just over 10km left on the 199km route from Colmar to Besancon.

American George Hincapie finished in the breakaway group to move from 28th to second behind Rinaldo Nocentini.

Mark Cavendish lost his stage points for barging Thor Hushovd in the sprint.

Hushovd, who leads the Briton in the green jersey competition, lodged a complaint which was upheld by race officials.

Cavendish, who crossed the line in 13th ahead of the Norwegian, was then disqualified from the stage and placed last, allowing Hushovd to increase his lead in the points race to 18.

“He just tried to push me in the barriers. I could pass him and when he saw me coming he tried to push me into the barriers, and that’s not fair game,” said the Cervelo Test Team rider.

“If he’s faster than I, then I can accept it but when you don’t follow the rules of fair game, then that’s no good.”

Race jury director Martin Bruin backed up Hushovd’s stance, explaining: “Mark Cavendish was disqualified because he did not stay on his line while he was next to Thor Hushovd.”

The stage was dominated by a breakaway group which formed within the first 20km and initially contained Cavendish.

The Briton dropped out of the group before the first intermediate sprint at 34km, at which point the gap was allowed to open up by the peloton and the remaining 12 riders stretched their advantage.

With his team-mate Irishman Nicolas Roche, son of former Tour winner Stephen, also in the break it was left to the Astana team leaders Lance Armstrong and Alberto Contador to ensure it was not given too much time as neither Columbia or AG2R would chase their own riders.

With 73km remaining, the gap had crept up to in excess of eight minutes before Astana and AG2R started working to reduce the deficit, but at 30km to go Hincapie was heading for the yellow jersey as they struggled to reduce the gap.

The American attempted to drive the break on but, as it was clear that the other escapees would be contesting a stage victory, they were unwilling to help him.

Coming into the final 15km a flurry of attacks culminated in a decisive move from Ivanov, who quickly opened up a gap of 30 seconds on his rivals.

Despite efforts from Albert Timmer (Skil-Shimano) and Hayden Roulston (Cervelo) they were unable to bring him back and he crossed the line 16 seconds ahead of Roche of AG2R, with Hincapie finishing eighth.

Behind them the main peloton had reduced the deficit to less than six minutes but it remained to be seen whether Nocentini could retain the overall lead.

He crossed the line in the main bunch, 5’36” back from the winner, and thus held on to the yellow jersey by five seconds.

Hincapie now sits second overall, one second ahead of Contador and three ahead of Armstrong, his close friend whom he rode for in the American’s seven consecutive wins.

Britain’s Bradley Wiggins drops to sixth overall but maintains his 46-second gap to the race leader.

The stage was earlier marred by the death of a female spectator and injury of two more in an incident involving a police motorcycle.

The woman, who was in her 60s, was hit as she crossed the road along the route near Colmar in north-eastern France.

It was the first fatality in the race since a child was killed in 2002 by a car from the publicity caravan.

The race now moves into the Alps with a mountain-top finish in the Swiss resort of Verbier today.

It is viewed as a potentially decisive stage where the yellow jersey candidates are expected to make a move.
The race finishes in Paris on July 26.