Quick Five: Stage 10

1)Mark Cavendish cares about the green jersey. The biggest surprise of the day was seeing the "Manx Missile" flexing his calves for a mere ninth place. For a rider who sits up when it's clear the win has gone in a bunch sprint, it was rather uncharacteristic for him to put in the work for a few points. However, even though he picked up the best placing in the field, he's still forty points behind Thor Hushovd and will need to win almost every remaining flat stage to take the green jersey.

2)This is a very hard Tour. Every Tour has a few quiet stages, and today was one of those. However, the entire pack looked much more gassed - and probably a bit scared - than usual. In the break, too, the riders looked pretty tired. Aerts didn't even try to sprint for third place, and neither Paulinho nor Kiriyenka tried to attack before the sprint, even though it would have been a better move for the RadioShack man. The two brutal days in the Alps have tired out the field, and they are worried about the long stretch in the Pyrenees.

3)Alessandro Petacchi is a damn sight better than expected. Ale-Jet has pretty firmly established himself as the second-best sprinter in this year's Tour. While no one can catch Cavendish on his day, Petacchi's sprinting brain is significantly better and he's profited from that a couple of times. If he can survive the Pyrenees, he should be the biggest challenger to Hushovd for the green jersey.

4)French teams still base their tactics around getting on TV. That's the only sensible explanation for Nicolas Roche's attack today - why else would he have jumped out of the field and soloed about ten kilometers to the finish? Rémi Pauriol, too, had a go late on for no reason at all. Until the French teams stop focusing on publicity, they won't win anything more than a few stages in the Tour.

5)Concentration is still the most important mental attribute in cycling. Lost focus for a moment caused Kiriyenka to lose the stage today - once Paulinho had gapped him by almost two bike lengths, it would have required a Robbie McEwen-esque late burst to overhaul the Portuguese. And really, if you're going to focus for any part of the stage, it has to be when you're three hundred meters out in a two-up sprint.