After ending their protest at the start line in Tarascon, the peloton dashed to the seaside at Le Cap d'Agde as if it wanted nothing more than to go on a collective holiday. The 205 mainly downhill kilometres from the point where the start flag was eventually dropped were covered at over 30 m.p.h.
The man behind much of the madness was Once's Laurent Jalabert, the strike leader in person, who was incited to go on the attack by his manager Manolo Saiz, who explained: "I felt like giving everyone an example of how to race. I made the whole team warm up, then they attacked one by one, and Jalabert's was the attack that succeeded."
The world number one and French national champion spent much of the stage in the company of his less illustrious brother Nicolas, who rides for the French team Cofidis, and the Dutchman Bart Voskamp.
Voskamp, who won a stage in 1996, is a member of the Dutch TVM team who are next in line to be thrown off the Tour after a discovery of banned drugs; in the manner of a condemned man eating his last breakfast, he shared the work with gusto.
Having gained almost five minutes to become the yellow jersey "on the road", Jalabert realised that he had taken on an unequal battle, with Jan Ullrich's Telekom troops leading the chase at a furious rate. He sat up, waved farewell to junior (who was caught in his turn a few miles later) and waited for the bunch.
It was a coup de panache applauded by the holiday makers seeking what shelter they could under the roadside trees, but Jalabert knew that if he persisted it might cost him dear today when the heat is forecast to approach 40 C (104 F) again, and the race tackles a second-category climb, the Col de Murs, just before the Carpentras finish.
Jalabert's anger was not the only factor in the high-speed day; the riders were blown to Le Cap d'Agde by a wind on their shoulders that caused the bunch to split as the chase was launched. The little climber Marco Pantani, who lies third overall, was temporarily left behind but regained contact after a nervous chase.
The collective hysteria continued, with skirmishing until 500 metres to the line, when the last mad dog to go out in the Midi sun, France's Jacky Durand, was reeled in. Voskamp's TVM team-mates suddenly appeared at the front; a victory for their sprinter Jeroen Blijlevens, under threat of expulsion, would have made the day a complete travesty.
The 40 m.p.h. massed rush up the finish straight was the only part of the day which resembled normality, with the Belgian champion Tom Steels taking his second stage win. His first victory, in Dublin 13 days ago, already seems to have taken place in a distant, and more innocent, past.
