Frenchman Casar breaks jinx

After three second place finishes, Frenchman Sandy Casar overcame a crash to win the 18th stage of the Tour de France yesterday.

The Francaise des Jeux rider outsprinted Belgian Axel Merckx of the T-Mobile team at the end of a 196-km breakaway in the 211-km stage from Cahors.

France's Laurent Lefevre came home third yesterday for the Bouygues Telecom team.

Casar was on the brink of pulling out of the race after a dog crossed the road and hit his rear wheel.

"I did not see it coming," said Casar.

"I thought my day was over. It hurt everywhere, my back, my shoulders."

Spaniard Alberto Contador, of the Discovery Channel team, retained the overall leader's yellow jersey but lost three seconds to second-placed Cadel Evans, of Australia.

Contador was surprised by a late acceleration of the peloton and has an advantage of one minute 50 seconds over the Predictor Lotto rider on the eve of the decisive time-trial.

Today's solo effort against the clock from Cognac to Angouleme will decide the winner of the Tour, two days after previous leader Michael Rasmussen was sacked by his Rabobank team.

The Dane left the race after the Dutch team found out that he had lied about his training whereabouts. Only 141 of the 189 starters took part in yesterday's stage after the Cofidis and Astana teams left the race amid doping scandals.

Cofidis quit on Wednesday after Italian Cristian Moreni tested positive for testosterone, one day after Astana had pulled out following Alexander Vinokourov's positive test for blood doping.