It was a stage that could have been remembered as the day with a successful break, a spirited sprint toward the uphill finish, a Frenchman moving into the race lead and Luis Leon Sanchez taking the stage victory. Instead, it will be remembered as yet another stage marked by several horrible crashes.

The largest of the falls forced Alexandre Vinokourov (Astana), Jurgen Van den Broeck (Omega Pharma-Lotto), Frederik Willems (Omega Pharma-Lotto) and David Zabriskie (Garmin-Cervélo) to abandon the Tour. In response to the wreckage, the peloton slowed significantly as they awaited word on the damage behind.

“This crash came at the front of the peloton in a slippery turn,” said Andy Schleck. “It looks as if it was caused by a simple rider mistake. The reason so many guys were seriously injured when they went down was because there were concrete blocks on the right side of the road.”

“It was important to wait and assess the situation,” Andy continued. “Most of the teams wanted to know as soon as possible how many riders were involved in the crash, who was injured but back on the bike and who would not continue. We agreed to back off the pace and allow those involved in the crash an opportunity to come back to the field. Once that was done, we started racing again.”

Lady Luck continues to favor the Leopard Trek boys who somehow managed to escape the mayhem that has impacted the ambitions of nearly every team. The three-rider break of Sanchez, Thomas Voeckler and Sandy Casar (FDJ) benefited from the chaos behind as they saw their advantage creep up to an insurmountable gap while the peloton slowed.

The break of three had been a five-rider move until a French television vehicle swerved into the leaders and knocked Juan Antonia Flecha (Sky Procycling) into Johnny Hoogerland (Vancansoleil). Flecha hit the pavement hard while Hoogerland was thrown violently from his bike into a barbed wire fence. Incredibly, both riders managed to get back on their bikes to finish the stage far behind the peloton.

“It was another hectic day” said Andy. “We sincerely hope everyone that went down will be okay, and we wish a speedy recovery to the riders that were forced to abandon.”

Sanchez countered an attack from Voeckler to cross the line first. Voeckler, four seconds back, assumed the yellow jersey from Thor Hushovd (Garmin-Cervélo) while Casar rounded out the podium.

Thirteen riders came across the line four minutes behind the three leaders. The Schleck brothers were part of this elite selection along with Cadel Evans (BMC), Alberto Contador (Saxo Bank Sungard), Peter Velits (HTC-Highroad), Tony Martin (HTC-Highroad) and Damiano Cunego (Lampre-ISD).

With Voeckler and Sanchez now occupying the top two spots overall, Fränk has been pushed back one place to fourth on the general classification while Andy has moved up to fifth. Eight seconds separate the brothers with Evans three seconds ahead of Fränk. Jakob Fuglsang remains Leopard Trek’s hole card in tenth overall.

The peloton takes a well-timed rest day tomorrow before racing continues on Tuesday. Stage ten is a short, punchy day in the saddle through the Cévennes. It is one of two chances teams will have to make an impact before the race reaches the Pyrenees on Thursday.

“Tomorrow we will take breakfast together as a team -- this time no rice and omelets! -- and do a press conference,” said Andy. “We’ll have a short spin and lots of rest. We plan to take full advantage of this rest day to ready ourselves for the second week of racing.”