Page "2001 Tour de France, Prologue to Stage 10" Paragraph 210

The peloton took a day-off, but not so a group of 14 riders that had broken away.

In the end they had a lead of almost 36 minutes, by far the largest one achieved in recent history.

Even a lead of 22 minutes had not occurred in the last 25 years.

Formally, this meant that the whole peloton finished out of time limits, but the referees understandably used a rule saying that they could give clemency to any group of more than 20 % of the stage's starting riders, officially citing the weather conditions as their reason to do so.

Still, the effects on the general classification were huge: Stuart O ' Grady, who was in the group, retook the yellow jersey, and is now over 35 minutes ahead of Armstrong.

Armstrong also has to make good over half an hour on Frenchman François Simon.

Perhaps even more dangerous is Andrei Kivilev.

He is ' only ' 13 minutes ahead of Armstrong, but unlike the others from the escape group, he is known to be good in the mountains, so he needs not lose very much on the toppers in the rest of the Tour.

Memories went back to 1990, when in the first stage a group of four riders won 15 minutes.

One of them, Claudio Chiappucci, held on to the end, and ended second, only 2 minutes behind winner Greg Lemond.