Points competition leader Oscar Freire won Saturday's 14th stage of the 2008 Tour de France, a mostly flat 195km route from Nimes to Digne les Bains.

Overall race leader Cadel Evans (Silence-Lotto) finished in the lead group on the stage to retain his 1-second advantage over Frank Schleck as the race approaches several difficult mountain stages.

Freire, wearing the points leader's green jersey, outsprinted a chaotic pack that formed after a small climb less than 10k from the finish. The Rabobank man outsprinted Fabio-Leonardo Duque (Cofidis) and Milram's veteran Erik Zabel. The three-time world champion said the win was why he came to the Tour in the first place. It was his fourth ever Tour stage win and the first of this year’s race.

“This was a perfect stage for me. I came here for stage wins, so I’ve reached my objective,” Freire said. “The green jersey would be nice, but I never set out to win it. It would be a bonus, but the yellow jersey is still the biggest goal for the team.”

The early, early break

The day began with a flurry of attacks that at one point delivered 21 riders to the front. Although most of the major teams had reps in the break, the peloton has little stomach for such a large secession so early on a long day.

The break's best placed riders were Francaise de Jeux's Sandy Casar and Quick Step's Stijn Devolder. Other name riders in the all-star group included Caisse d'Epargne's Ivan Guitierrez, Bouygues Telecom's Thomas Voeckler, CSC's Stuart O'Grady and Garmin's Will Frischkorn.

The group built up a maximum lead of about one minute and stayed away for about 35km before being sucked back in. But before the catch, four riders — Casar, Gutierrez, Bram Tankink (Rabobank), and William Bonnet (Credit Agricole) — smartly slipped away.

The four worked together and the peloton allowed them to build a lead of nearly seven minutes.

The Chase and the Col

In the final 50 kilometers, Bouygues Telecom, Liquigas and Milram led the chase, with some help from Columbia and Evans' Silence Lotto squad. The peloton brought the foursome's gap back to under a minute with 26 kilometers to go, when Gutierrez abandoned the sinking ship and struck out on his own.

"When the teams of the sprinters began to really force the pace and I saw that the others riders were not riding at hundred percent anymore, I decided to attack alone,” Gutierrez said. “I knew that I had a possibility to win the stage if I was still 40 seconds ahead in the hill but the gap was only twenty seconds and it was not sufficient. Many efforts for nothing but I had to try it!”

Soon after, the charging peloton caught Casar, Bonnet and Tankink, leaving Gutierrez alone for a few more kilometers.

The teams hoping to rid the peloton of four-stage winner Mark Cavendish were focusing on the Col de l'Orme. While only a category 4 climb, the 2.4-kilometer col topped out just 9.5km from the finish, and could serve as a spring board for a last attack, but also as a place to scrape Cavendish out of the lead group.

In either case, the climb was not good news for Gutierrez, who was finally brought back midway up the climb. Soon after, Voeckler — a participant in the early 21-man break — tried a brief foray, but was also brought back before the top.

Down the descent and into town, Milram, Rabobank and Liquigas led the charge. Columbia was also prominent at the front, apparently looking to set up Ciolek, as Cavendish dangled off the back.

Sylvain Chavanel, for the second day in a row, tried a solo attack with less than 5k to go, and opened up a narrow gap before the sprinters brought him back.

Zabel took a big dig in the last kilometer, but it was the three-time world champion, Freire, who came around in the final meters to score his first stage win of the year.

As for Cavendish, after struggling to stay in contact on the Col, he rolled in three minutes behind the lead pack.

The road ahead

Now that the sprinters got their shot at this, the last of “transition” stages, the peloton’s attention turns to the tight race for the overall standings, with Sunday’s mountain-top finish in Italy.

The 183-kilometer stage from Embrun to Prato Nevoso takes the Tour to a climb last visited in 2000 during the Giro d’Italia.

The stage crosses the hors categorie Col Agnel early in the day and then finishes with a tough Cat. 1 climb to the ski resort at Prato Nevoso, the last 8km of which averages a tough eight percent.

Despite having a scant one-second lead over Schleck, who is backed up by some of the toughest climbers in the peloton, Evans says he’s ready to defend the yellow jersey.

“It’s true, I don’t have a climbing team, but my team has performed above and beyond what I’d expected of them since I took the jersey,” Evans said. “From guys like Robbie McEwen to Leif Hoste to Popovych on down, they’ve done everything I could have asked of them and more.”

---

Stage results:
1. Oscar Freire (Sp), Rabobank
2. Fabio-Leonardo Duque (COL), Cofidis
3. Erik Zabel (G), Milram
4. Julien Dean (NZ), Garmin-Chipotle
5. Steven De Jongh (NED), Quick Step
6. Alessandro Ballan (ITA), Lampre
7. Ruben Perez (ESP), Euskaltel-Euskadi
8. Jerome Pineau (FRA), Bouygues Telecom