On paper at least, Stage 6 of the Tour de France looked interesting, with a steep ascent toward the end that the 117-year-old race was scaling for the first time and which seemed like it might tempt top contenders to test each other out on the rugged, narrow mountain road. Instead of seeing a reckoning between the favorites, the Tour saw Kazakh rider Alexey Lutsenko surge alone up the previously unclimbed Lusette pass on Thursday to earn his first stage victory in his fifth Tour de France. Adam Yates of Britain kept the overall race lead, as he and other contenders for victory in Paris stayed bunched together as a group, waiting for bigger mountains that come later in the three-week Tour, starting this weekend in the Pyrenees.
