Feillu claims stage as Armstrong fails to snatch lead

Frenchman Brice Feillu won the 224-km seventh stage of the Tour de France from Barcelona to Arcalis as seven-times champion Lance Armstrong failed to snatch the overall lead yesterday.

Italy's Rinaldo Nocentini took the yellow jersey from Swiss Fabian Cancellara and heads Spaniard Alberto Contador by six seconds.

Armstrong, who started the day level on time with Cancellara, was third, two seconds behind his Astana team-mate and rival.

Contador, the 2007 Tour champion, attacked the favourites' group in the latter stages of the final 10.6-km ascent and Armstrong could not keep up the pace.

The minor podium places for the stage went to France's Christophe Kern and German Johannes Froehlinger, who had been part of a nine-man breakaway.

The escapees built a maximum gap of 12:30, with Astana setting the pace in the front of the peloton.

Levi Leipheimer and green jersey holder Mark Cavendish were involved in a crash shortly before the last climb but they made it unhurt to the line.

Contador's brutal attack some two kilometres from the finish at an altitude of 2,240 metres was too much for Armstrong, who crossed the line with other favourites such as Luxembourg's Andy Schleck and Australian Cadel Evans.