Tour de France: Favourites look to reel in Rasmussen on low roads

After more than a week in the saddle, the Tour de France reached its first rest day at Tignes with most of the favourites still clustered together at the head of the general classification.

The one exception to the rule is the Dane Michael Rasmussen, whose classy lone victory at Tignes on Sunday has placed him 43 seconds ahead of the man he ousted from yellow, Germany's Linus Gerdemann.

Whilst Gerdemann - only 24 and riding his first Tour - would do brilliantly just to remain where he is overall, the bulk of the big-name contenders, almost all lurking at around the three- to five-minute mark behind the Dane, have barely launched a single all-out attack.

"It's been a very conservative race up to now, even in the two Alpine stages the main guys have been riding not to win the race, but to try not to lose it." Gerdemann's manager at T-Mobile, Bob Stapleton, said.

As for Rasmussen, the Dane's potential for holding the yellow jersey remains perhaps the biggest question so far. No one doubts his capacity in the mountains but he is an unexceptional time triallist and 110 kilometres of racing against the clock are yet to come.

The other favourites are gambling on the Dane being eventually brought down by his limitations as soon as the road stops going uphill.

Such unpredictability has, Stapleton feels, brought a breath of fresh air to a race dominated for so long by Lance Armstrong - and then hit hard by the Floyd Landis scandal last year.

Stapleton also confirmed that Patrick Sinkewitz, the T-Mobile rider who collided with a spectator on Sunday after the finish, will not start today, having suffered major facial injuries..

For another injured rider, the race favourite Alexandre Vinokourov, the rest day deep in the French Alps could not come soon enough. Riding with 15 stitches in one knee, the Kazakh got through the Tour's first two mountain stages with minimal losses.

"I only lost just over a minute to the main contenders, so the Tour is still winnable," he said

Britain's Charlie Wegelius confirmed that he will continue racing in the Tour despite crashing heavily on Sunday's stage, and suffering whiplash.

Alasdair Fotheringham writes for www.cyclingweekly.co.uk