Ricco rocks favourites as Evans suffers crash

BAGNERES-DE-BIGORRE (France)  - Italian Riccardo Ricco recovered from a heavy crash on the race's eighth stage to win the Tour de France ninth stage in spectacular fashion here on Sunday.

Luxembourg's Kim Kirchen overcame a difficult first day in the Pyrenees to keep the yellow jersey and his six-second lead on Australia's Cadel Evans, who, worryingly for his team, suffered a crash earlier in the stage.

The first of three days in the Pyrenees, a mammoth 224km hike over two of the race's first category one-rated climbs, had been lit up by an audacious three-man breakaway which left Germany's Sebastien Lang all on his own.

However the Gerolsteiner rider was soon upstaged by Ricco, who attacked a chasing but disintegrating peloton on the climb to the summit of the Col d'Aspin, the second big climb of the day.

He overtook the tiring Lang with 1.1km to the summit, and the German started his descent with a 35-sec defitit to the 24-year-old Ricco.

The Italian, best known for the climbing prowess which helped him to a runner-up place on the Giro d'Italia in June, engaged in a brave descent towards Bagneres where he came over the finish over a minute ahead of chasing Russian Vladimir Efimkin.

His win comes only four days after he beat Evans and Spanish favourite Alejandro Valverde to the uphill finish line at Super-Besse in the Massif Central.

But despite moving him up the overall standings Ricco said it would not change his objectives.