Saxo Bank took the initiative and launched a grand offensive to take the overall win of the Tour de France on today's battle of Tourmalet where the Danish squad isolated Alberto Contador from his helpers by keeping an intense pace. After an impressively tough attack, Andy took a beautiful stage victory on the most prestigious day in this year's Tour de France.

The long-awaited 174 kilometer long seventeenth stage of Tour d France with the feared uphill finish on top of the legendary climb to Col de Tourmalet in the Pyrenees started in a chock when the overall podium candidate, Samuel Sanchez (Euskatel) crashed shortly after launching the stage. Andy and the other overall favorites decided to wait for the Spaniard to catch up with the main field before pursuing today's breakaway.

Marcus Burghardt (BMC), Edvald Boasson Hagen (Team Sky), Rémi Pauriol (Cofidis), Kristjan Koren (Liquigas), Ruben Perez Moreno (Euskatel), Alexandr Kolobnev (Katusha) og Juan Antonio Flecha (Team Sky) escaped straight from the gun and they soon worked up a lead of a little less than ten minutes.

Nicki Sørensen was vigilant and worked tirelessly in front of the pack to neutralize the gap wearing the Danish flag on his back. On the final climb before Tourmalet, the gap was halved and now a mind-blowing chase on the slippery wet descent through dense fog was initiated by Stuart O'Grady who led the group of favorites to the foot of the big battle field on Col de Tourmalet where up to one million people cheered the riders on.

After one last stifling lead by Matti Breschel in the valley before taking on the Tourmalet, the distance to the breakaway was less than four minutes possibly placing the stage win to one of the overall candidates.

Then, TStuart O'Grady and Fabian Cancellara threw the hammer on clusters of riders who were dropped immediately. The Danish climbers, Chris Anker Sørensen and Jakob Fuglsang took over the violent pace of the pack dropping Alexandre Vinokourov and all other Astana-riders.

Nine kilometers from the finish line, Andy flew off and away from his opponents and only Alberto Contador (Astana) was able to follow the incredible speed on the mountain.

On the final meters, Andy became the king of Tourmalet by taking another wonderful stage win in this year's Tour de France. The duo distanced the followers with more than one minute.

Alberto Contador (Astana) still leads the race ahead of Andy with eight seconds.

”I'm so happy about today's win. To win here on Tourmalet is dream come true for me. I was very optimistic and wanted to take the jersey today but as it turned out, Contador (Alberto) was simply impossible to drop even though I did all I could to do so. My team was doing a fantastic job putting me in the best position possible before the finale but he (Alberto Contador) did a great stage as well. I am, however still motivated for the time trial. Only eight seconds separates me from the overall win and anything can happen, everything is possible,” said Andy after the podium ceremony.