2003 Tour de France, Stage 10 to Stage 20

The 2003 Tour de France was the 90th edition of Tour de France, one of cycling's Grand Tours. The Tour began in Paris with a prologue individual time trial on 5 July and Stage 10 occurred on 15 July with a flat stage from Gap. The race finished on the Champs-Élysées, back in Paris, on 27 July.

15 July 2003 — Gap to Marseille, 219.5 km (136.4 mi)

A long, largely flat 219.5 km stage after three days in the mountains gave the majority of the riders a chance to recuperate, the pace was somewhat slower than the average to this stage. The roadside temperature was high (around 40 °C).

A group of nine riders made a break after just 16 km and slowly built their lead up, to 17 minutes by halfway and to a maximum of around 23 minutes. With such a substantial lead the nine rider group began to fragment with repeated attacks from around 50 km to go, José Enrique Gutiérrez made a solo break and led into Marseille, he was closed down and passed by Fabio Sacchi and then Jakob Piil. These two riders worked together and soon built up a minute lead over the others. Entering the final 2 km to the finish Piil and Saachi shook hands and began to race, Piil led out but managed to hold off Saachi to become the first Danish stage winner since Bjarne Riis in 1996. Bram de Groot broke from the chasers to finish third and the peloton came in over 21 minutes down. The top positions in the general classification were unchanged, the best placed rider in the breakaway was over ¾ of an hour down on Armstrong.

17 July 2003 — Narbonne to Toulouse, 153.5 km (95.4 mi)

After the first rest day, one of the shortest stages of the tour at 153.5 km, another flat stage with only one climb, the third category Cote de Saissac at 82 km. The Tour has finished a stage in Toulouse 24 times before, the last time in 1985.

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