Weather
Cloudy in morning, partly cloudy skies and increasing winds in afternoon,highs in upper 70s, low 80sStage winner
Sergei Gontchar (T-Mobile), 1h01:43, 50.554kph – The 36-year-oldUkraine pulled a surprise win on a day when the pundits were predictingan American sweep. The 2000 world time trial champion was fastest at allthe splits to win his first career Tour stage. Floyd Landis (Phonak) wassecond at 1:01 despite a bike change at 13km after his aero-bars broke.

Stage Stats: Stage 7 by the numbers

Race leader
Gontchar, 1,309.6km in 30h23:20, 43.095kph – Gontchar becomesUkraine’s first rider to wear the yellow jersey, taking a 1 minute leadon Landis. Gontchar – who insists his name is misspelled on his passportand in Tour result sheets as Honchar – has only finished one Tour in twostarts, arriving in Paris 64th in 2002. Overnight Tom Boonen (Quick Step-Innergetic),who held the race leader’s jersey for four days, slipped to 21st overallat 3:15 back.

Green jersey
Robbie McEwen (Davitamon-Lotto) retained his 10-point lead toBoonen, 157-147 points, as only a few points were in the offing to thetop-10 of Saturday’s TT.King of the Mountains
Jerome Pineau (Bouygues Telecom) retained the polka-dot jerseyas there were no rated climbs in the stage. He leads with 28 points toDavid de la Fuente (Saunier Duval-Prodir) in second with 17, and FabianWegmann (Gerolsteiner) third with 15.

Best Young Rider
Marcus Fothen (Gerolsteiner) rode an amazing time trial to finishseventh at 1:42 and moved to fifth overall in the GC. He takes a 1:11 leadto Thomas Lovkvist (FDJeux) in the young rider’s category.Best team
T-Mobile was the best team on the day and takes a 3:09 leadto Phonak.Most aggressive rider
no award issuedLanterne Rouge
Sebastian Joly (FDJeux), 170th at 43:25The peloton
170 riders, Bobby Julich (CSC) crashed outMedical report
Julich crashed 1.5km into the race, suffering deep cuts to hisright wrist, reportedly down to his bone and tendons, other cuts and abrasionsto his hips and elbow. Transported to hospital in Rennes, early X-raysreveal no broken bones, but surgery likely to clean wound and assess anypossible further injuries, will be kept overnight for observation.Jury decisions
no rulings madeForecast
Cloudy in morning, partly sunny in afternoon, humid, with moderatesouthwest winds at 15-25 kph. Highs expected in the upper 70s, low 80s