Chris Horner takes the lead from his RadioShack team leader Levi Leipheimer in the final kilometres (Image credit: Jonathan Devich)
RadioShack's Tour de France went from bad to worse on stage 7 of the race with Levi Leipheimer and Chris Horner both losing significant time. The American squad came into the race with four potential threats for GC but after seven days of racing only Andreas Klöden remains a realistic challenge, 10 seconds down on the yellow jersey.
Janez Brajkovic had been forced out of the race with concussion on stage 5, while Leipheimer had lost a minute yesterday due to a crash. On today's stage to Chateauroux, Horner and Leipheimer were both involved in a crash within the final 35 kilometers, with the former losing 3:06, and the latter lost over 12 minutes.
At the finish Leipheimer talked about the crash-effected first week of racing at the Tour de France but stressed that the team would be going all-out to support Kloden.
This year's race had started well for Lance Armstrong's former team. All four GC contenders had finished in the chase group behind Philippe Gilbert (Omega Pharma-Lotto) on stage 1, while the team had put in a robust but unspectacular performance to seal 6th place in the team time trial.
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Daniel Benson was the Editor in Chief at Cyclingnews.com between 2008 and 2022. Based in the UK, he joined the Cyclingnews team in 2008 as the site's first UK-based Managing Editor. In that time, he reported on over a dozen editions of the Tour de France, several World Championships, the Tour Down Under, Spring Classics, and the London 2012 Olympic Games. With the help of the excellent editorial team, he ran the coverage on Cyclingnews and has interviewed leading figures in the sport including UCI Presidents and Tour de France winners.
