Mark Cavendish moved to level third on the list of all-time Tour de France stage winners with a storming victory in Saint-Amand-Montrond.
Cavendish has now won 26 stages in six years, moving him level with 1920's French cyclist Andre Leducq. Only the legendary Benard Hinault and Eddy Merckx have won more - 28 and 34 respectively.
The British road race champion has endured a Tour to forget, battling illness, missing sprints he was favourite to win, clashing with rivals and having urine thrown at him by angry fans.
But Cavendish escaped in a break led by Alberto Contador's Saxo-Tinkoff team and sprinted to his second stage win of this year's race, though he is still 84 points behind Peter Sagan in the green jersey standings.
However, it was a different story for Britain's other Tour hope.
Chris Froome saw his overall lead trimmed to two minutes and 28 seconds as Alejandro Valverde dropped from second to 16th, Bauke Mollema taking his place while former winner Contador moved into the podium places.
© Sportsbeat 2013