TALLARD, France -- Michael Rasmussen wore the race leader's yellow jersey as he led the pack out of the mountains and back on the flat roads for Wednesday's 10th stage of the Tour de France -- the midpoint of the race.
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Stage 10 is a 142.6 mile flat route from Tallard to Marseille that favors speedy riders such as Tom Boonen, who holds the green jersey as best sprinter.
Rasmussen leads a pair of Spaniards, with Alejandro Valverde 2 minutes, 35 seconds behind, and Iban Mayo 2:39 back.
Another flat stage follows on Thursday, followed by a medium mountain stage Friday and the race's first time trial on Saturday, before the Tour starts climbing again with the Pyrenees even tougher than the Alps.
Meanwhile, Alexandre Vinokourov's chances of winning the Tour are as thin as the stitches in his battered knees.
After repeatedly refusing to talk down his hopes since crashing last week, Vinokourov seemed to accept his fate after laboring up three massive climbs during Tuesday's ninth stage.
"It was another horrible day for me," the Kazakh rider mumbled to a French television channel. Then he wiped away tears.
Such a show of emotion is uncommon by Vinokourov, who is arguably the toughest on the Tour and treats pain with contempt. But he may be realizing a painful truth.
He fell further behind during the 99-mile course from the Val d'Isere ski station to Briancon, won by the unheralded Juan Mauricio Soler of Colombia.
Soler, competing in his first Tour, clocked 4 hours, 14 minutes, 24 seconds. Alejandro Valverde of Spain was second and Cadel Evans of Australia third, each 38 seconds back.
Vinokourov lost another 2:42 to Rasmussen as the mountains ganged up to torture him for a third straight day, and now trails him by a daunting 8:05 overall.
