Weather
Showers at start, mostly cloudy and some sprinkles in the afternoon, temperatures in the high 70s, light to moderate head-crosswinds

Stage winner
Robbie McEwen (Davitamon-Lotto), 4h10:17, 45.309kph – McEwen took another dominant victory by three bike lengths to score a Tour hat-trick, winning his third stage in just six tries. Last year, McEwen also won three stages, but it took 13 stages to pull it off. Italian Daniele Bennati (Lampre-Fondital) won the battle for second place.

Race leader
Tom Boonen (Quick Step-Innergetic), 29h21:00, 42.833kph – The world champion pounded his right fist on his handlebars after finishing third in the sprint, wasting once again hard work by Quick Step-Innergetic to reel in a breakaway and set up the mass gallop. With time bonuses, Boonen widened his grip on the maillot jaune to 12 seconds over McEwen. Yesterday’s second-place man, Michael Rogers (T-Mobile) at one second back, slipped to third at 21 seconds back.

Green jersey
McEwen’s victory gave him 35 points to tighten his grip on the green jersey, now 10 points ahead of Boonen, 157-147 points. Freire remained in third with 135 points, Bennati fourth with 116 points and defending green jersey winner Thor Hushovd (Crédit Agricole) in fifth at 103 points.

King of the Mountains
Jerome Pineau (Bouygues Telecom) earned two points on the day’s lone rated climb (the Cat. 3 Cote de la Huniere at 27.5km) to retain the polka-dot jersey with 28 points. David de la Fuente (Saunier Duval-Prodir) remains in second with 17 and Fabian Wegmann (Gerolsteiner) third with 15.

Best Young Rider
Frenchman Benoit Vaugrenard (FDJeux) snuck away in the day’s breakaway and won the first intermediate sprint at 46km, earning a six-second time bonus to bounce back into the lead. Overnight leader Marcus Fothen (Gerolsteiner) finished safely in the bunch, but fell to second at three seconds back.

Stage Stats: Stage 6 by the numbers

Best team
Crédit Agricole was the best team on the stage with Discovery Channel retaining its one-second lead over Team CSC in the overall.

Most aggressive rider
Anthony Geslin (Bouygues Telecom) won the day’s honors after working into an early break and then following an acceleration by Magnus Backstedt (Liquigas), only to be reeled in with 4km to go.

Lanterne Rouge
Sebastian Joly (FDJeux), 172nd at 36:26

The peloton
171 riders, Fabio Sacchi (Milram) did not start, bronchitis

Medical reportAlexandre Moos (Phonak) sore throat Daniele Bennati (Lampre-Fondital) pain in left thigh and cuts to left elbow from crash in stage 5 Daniele Righi (Lampre-Fondital) cuts to left hip and Walter Beneteau (Bouygues Telecom) light scrapes from crash at 60km Davide de la Fuente (Saunier Duval-Prodir) digestion troubles Rik Verbrugghe (Cofidis) shoulder and back pain

Jury decisions Sport director Matxin Fernandez (Saunier Duval-Prodir) fined 200 Swiss francs illegal feed. Andreas Kloden (T-Mobile), Aitor Hernandez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) and Cristian Moreni (Cofidis) fined 100 SF for “comportement incorrect en public”Forecast
Sunny in the morning with partly cloudy skies in afternoon, but no showers expected, light southerly winds at 10kph in the afternoon, temperatures in the mid- to upper-70s