Just as CSC’s time-trial specialist Fabian Cancellara took the first yellow jersey of this Tour de France at the prologue in London and held it until the race hit the mountains, Rabobank’s climbing specialist Michael Rasmussen took the mailliot jaune Sunday at the summit finish Tignes, and could well keep it until next Saturday’s 54km time trial in Albi.

By winning Sunday’s stage on a colossal solo effort, Rasmussen took the race lead by 43 seconds ahead of overnight leader Linus Gerdemann (T-Mobile), and 2:39 over Spanish climber Iban Mayo of Saunier Duval.

More importantly, however, is Rasmussen’s lead over the race’s true GC contenders. The thin, blond-haired Dane is 2:52 ahead of Andrey Kashechkin (Astana), 2:53 ahead of Cadel Evans (Predictor-Lotto) and 3:06 ahead of Christophe Moreau (AG2R), with riders such as Carlos Sastre, Levi Leipheimer and Alex Vinokourov further down the general classification.

With Sunday a rest day and Monday another climbing stage, followed by four relatively flat stages, Rasmussen could well hold the race lead until the stage 13 time trial, where he will likely lose several minutes to the race’s GC contenders and time-trial specialists.

Rasmussen earned the first of his two polka-dot KOM jerseys in 2005 after a similar mountainous solo stage win netted him both KOM points and major time gains. The Dane entered the final time trial of that Tour sitting third overall behind Lance Armstrong and Ivan Basso, and needed the TT of his life to stave off German Jan Ullrich from supplanting his podium position.

Instead, Rasmussen delivered one of the most famous chokes in modern Tour history, crashing once, nearly crashing several times and demanding multiple bike changes during a ride that saw him plummet to seventh overall. It was a Tour that both opened Rasmussen’s eyes to his podium potential, but revealed that he is essentially a pure climber, capable of delivering power-to-weight rather than sustained power on flatter terrain.

“Two years I came pretty close to ending up on the podium,” Rasmussen said. “If I hadn’t been fiddling around on the pavement in Saint Etienne, it might have been possibility. Of course it crossed my mind that year that at one point in the future, if the parcours were in my favor, I could make the podium. I think this could be the year. The Pyrenees are extremely difficult this year. We still have 110km of time trialing to do. I’ve proven in the past that’s not exactly my specialty. Everything is still wide open.”

Rasmussen’s Rabobank team director Erik Breukink said his team would work to defend the race lead.

“We will defend the jersey. It's very important for the team to have this jersey,” Breukink said. “The plan worked perfect today. Michael had the freedom to attack because he said he had the legs. Can he win? We know that for him the time trial is a handicap. We still have Menchov in good position. It's a luxury that we can play with two leaders now. Tactically it's better for us."

But Breukink hesitated to say that Rabobank’s Denis Menchov, who came into the Tour as the team’s GC leader after finishing sixth last year, would work for Rasmussen if the situation arose.

“It’s hard to say. We will try to keep them both in the general, because that is very important,” Breukink said. “Denis would be the last guy to do something on the last climbs, and when Denis can do something for himself, that is also good. They have to stick together, that is the most important part.”

Rabobank was the subject of some controversy after Saturday’s stage finish in Le Grand Bornand, where Rasmussen attacked the group of GC contenders and opened a gap of 30 seconds, taking eighth on the Col de la Colombiere and 10 climber’s points before he was brought back into the group. Afterwards, Rasmussen — who is up for a new contract and had wished to attack earlier in the stage — was reported to be angry about his team’s race communications, specifically concerning who calls the shots between Breukink, Menchov and Dutch rider Michael Boogerd.

“Well, maybe I was a little too ambitious yesterday,” Rasmussen said. “I felt I had too good of legs to not chase for victory, and I proved that today. It was the first day where we climbing a little bit. Everyone was looking at each other. There was a little miscommunication but I think we straightened that all out with the team. There were no problems and the team rode very well today.”

Breukink offered his own perspective of what had happened, saying it was KOM points, not the stage win, that Rasmussen wanted.

“Michael wanted to attack on the Colombiere, but I didn’t give the team [order]. We didn’t want to work to close the gap for the big group there, because otherwise you have to work always. It was a little bit [hard] for him, he wanted to already take the mountain jersey yesterday. But I think it was better that he went easy yesterday, and it went well today.”

The last time a pure climber won the Tour was in 1998, when that year’s Giro d’Italia champ Marco Pantani upset defending champion Jan Ullrich. While Lance Armstrong repeatedly stayed with, and defeated, the top climbers in the sport from 1999-2005, the Texan was equally dominant in time trials. Rasmussen admitted he hasn’t spent much time focusing on the time trial since that fateful day in Saint Etienne two years ago.

“I haven’t trained any time trialing at all this year,” Rasmussen said. “I’m a pure climber, so I think if I have to go all the way all the Paris, I’ll have to climb faster ever than I have done in my life. I don’t think my TT skills have improved that much.”

Rasmussen isn’t expected to vie for the final podium in Paris, but as this year’s Tour has shown, anything can happen.