Tour de France Notes

*RUSSIAN Serguei Ivanov won the 14th stage of the Tour de France, a 199-km ride from Colmar to Besancon on Saturday.

Ireland’s Nicolas Roche was second and Hayden Roulston of New Zealand came home third. Italian Rinaldo Nocentini retained the overall leader’s yellow jersey.*FORMER world champion Tom Boonen has pulled out of the Tour de France before the 15th stage, organisers said yesterday.Boonen, 28, had been ill all night. The sprinter had not made an impact on the race and was 79th in the competition for the green points jersey, which he won in 2007.The Belgian champion, who failed an out-of-competition dope test for cocaine in April, was only allowed on to the Tour after a French arbitration court ruled in his favour on the eve of the race.*NEW Zealand cyclist Julian Dean did not know he had been shot during Friday’s stage on the Tour de France, thinking instead he had been hit by flying stone chips.Dean was struck in the index finger and Spain’s Oscar Freire was hit in the right thigh by small shots during the 13th stage from Vittel to Colmar. Officials later said they had been shot by a slug gun and police are looking for two teenagers.*THE Tour de France was marred by the death of a spectator on Saturday as Russian Serguei Ivanov won the 14th stage, a 199-km ride from Colmar.A gendarmerie officer, who declined to be named, said that according to witnesses 61-year-old Jeannette Stoeffel had been seen crossing the road many times before she was hit by a motorcycle involved with the race.Two other people were injured when they were hit by the motorcycle but their lives were not in danger, officials said.*THE Team Columbia of Mark Cavendish and George Hincapie made a bold gamble in the 14th stage of the Tour de France in Besancon on Saturday and ended up losing out on everything.American Hincapie missed the yellow jersey by just five seconds after taking part in the day’s breakaway, which reached the finish line five minutes and 20 seconds before the main pack including Tour leader Rinaldo Nocentini.*LEVI Leipheimer has had surgery on the broken right wrist that forced him to pull out of the Tour de France, his Astana team said on Friday.Doctors joined the two parts of the broken scaphoid with a titanium screw and Leipheimer will return to the U.S. as soon as possible to begin his recovery, Astana said in a statement.’My wrist hurts a lot but it doesn’t compare to the pain of watching the Tour leave me behind and not be able to ride the Tour with my team mates,’ the 35-year-old American said. – Reports by Nampa-Reuters and AFP