Life is just Fab as Cancellara is quickest at the end of go-slow

While four breakaway riders jostled for position on the cobbles as they rounded the final corner and the sprinters gathered themselves for an attack, the man in the yellow jersey caught everybody napping.

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Sprint star: Fabian Cancellara

Surging clear, the 26-year-old Swiss - a convincing winner of Saturday's prologue in London - took his second victory of this year's race. In doing so, the CSC Team rider picked up the 20-second bonus awarded to the stage winner and stretched his advantage over Andreas Kloden to 33 seconds.

Cancellara proved that his talents are not restricted to time-trialling - the discipline at which he is the current world champion.

He said: "This is a bit of a departure for me. I just saw the group up in front and decided I would keep riding at them. Compiegne means a lot to me because it's the start of the Paris-Roubaix race, which I won this year.

"It's great to win a stage as the wearer of the yellow jersey after all the work I have done this year. The prologue gave me a lot of confidence and I will have even more now."

The drama of the final yards of the Tour's longest stage - a 147-mile slog from Waregem in Belgium - contrasted with the sedate pace earlier in the day.

After only one fourth category climb - the least severe of the inclines - the peloton arrived in Compiegne an hour later than anticipated. They were in the saddle for more than six-and-a-half hours primarily because so many riders were not in the final sprint of Monday's second stage.

The sprawling pile-up in Ghent caused so many cuts and bruises that the team leaders among the riders agreed not to push the pace yesterday. In a gesture of camaraderie, they made their way to the front of the peloton halfway through the stage and talked matters through.

It was then left to Cancellara, as wearer of the yellow jersey, to communicate their intention to race director Christian Prudhomme.

The injuries sustained in Ghent included a dislocated shoulder and 10 stitches in an arm wound for American Freddie Rodriguez, who nonetheless took his place yesterday.

Another man who was battered and bruised after falls on successive days was Britain's Mark Cavendish, whose ninth place behind Cancellara was the first step to recovery after his disastrous crash in Kent.

Cavendish said: "If I get down about it I'm letting the team down. It was just unfortunate that I got wiped out yesterday as well. But it won't affect me because I'm not here for anything but to wait for the sprint at the end of the stage."

Yesterday's other accident involved Monday's winner, Gert Steegmans, whose attention on the snack he was chewing was rather too healthy for his own good as he collided with a hay bale and landed on the concrete base of a bridge.

The other slippage, on a stage which passed the monument to the railway carriage in the woods outside Compiegne in which the German First World War surrender took place, was by Britain's David Millar.

He relinquished the polka dot jersey, worn by the Tour's best climber, to France's Stephane Auge - one of the four-strong breakaway chased down by Cancellara.