Australian Cadel Evans wins Tour’s 10th stage

Australian Cadel Evans took the Tour de France yellow jersey for the first time in his career after the race's gruelling 10th stage on Monday.

Italian Leonardo Piepoli of the Saunier Duval team won the stage, a 156 km ride from Pau in the Pyrenees.

Overnight leader Kim Kirchen was one of the numerous contenders to suffer on the first stage of the race to feature climbs which are so difficult they are unclassified.

He finished over four minutes behind Piepoli and over three minutes behind Evans's small group to lose the race lead he took after the sixth stage.

Spain's big yellow jersey favourite Alejandro Valverde meanwhile had arguably his worst day on the Tour de France, the Caisse d'Epargne leader tumbling down the standings.

He is now 4:41 behind Evans in 14th place. Evans, who rides for Silence-Lotto, now leads the race by just one second from Luxemburger Frank Schleck of the CSC team, with American Christian Vande Velde in third place at 38sec.

In fourth place overall is Austrian Bernard Kohl of Gersolsteiner, with Spaniard Carlos Sastre - the CSC team leader - in fourth place at 1:28.

Kirchen fell to seventh place at 1:56 behind Evans, who will now go into Tuesday's rest day glad of the chance to rest having injured his shoulder in a heavy crash on the ninth stage.

The other big losers of the hardest stage in the Pyrenees' was Andy Schleck, who fell quickly out of contention once the going got tough on the climb to Hautacam.

Italian Damiano Cunego also showed the limits of his yellow jersey ambitions on a day which saw him drop well out of contention.

An emotional Evans was holding back the tears after pulling on the yellow jersey, making him the first Australian to do so since sprinter Robbie McEwen wore it for a day in 2004.

However the Australian, arguably, would have done better to leave the race lead to Schleck because he will now have to defend it in the coming days.