Luis Sanchez won the seventh stage of the 2008 Tour de France after a lengthy break-away on July 11 on a dramatic day that saw the main favourites for this year's race pull away from the rest of the field.

The stage between Brioude and Aurillac in the Massif Central was 159km-long and featured five climbs, including two category-two ones, which split the peloton into several larger groups. For the last hour and a half of the stage, four riders led the race, working together to keep the small group of favourites at bay.

Sanchez raced away from his fellow break-aways on the descent from the last climb of the day, building up enough of a lead to take it easy on the last metres and point his fingers to the heavens as he crossed the finish line six seconds ahead of his closest chasers. His win is the second for Caisse d'Epargne team in this year's Tour, team leader Alejandro Valverde winning the opening stage of the race.

Tour leader Kim Kirchen will keep the yellow jersey for at least one more day after finishing fourth but his efforts to grab a stage win once again fell short. The team Columbia leader has twice finished second and has a fourth place to his name as well.

"My team-mates had a pretty hard day. I had everything under control and, okay, in the final I was a little bit on my own on the uphill but I had great legs and could follow even the best guys," he said after the end of the stage, as quoted by the Tour's official website letour.com.

Cadel Evans remains second six seconds behind Kirchen, with Stefan Schumacher in third and Christian Vandevelde fourth. A group of ten riders are between one and two minutes behind the leader, including Valverde, Denis Menshov, Carlos Sastre and David Millar.

Kirchen also extended his lead in the sprinters' classification, but the green jersey will pass to Rabobank's Oscar Freire, who overtook Thor Hushovd as the second-placed rider in the standings.

"If I’m in the front, why should I not sprint to take points for the green jersey? Maybe I’m going to lose the yellow jersey so afterwards I would be happy to have the green one," he said.

David de la Fuente from team Saunier Duval-Scott, who was part of the group of four that led the race through most of the second part of the race, did just enough to take the polka-dot jersey of the king of the mountains. The main part of the race for the mountain climbers, however, will not begin until the Tour hits the Pyrenees on July 13.

The stage also brought four withdrawals from the race, as many as there were after the previous six stages. Among them was Christophe Moreau from team Agritubel, who finished the 2000 Tour fourth.

He is the second big name to withdraw from the race, following last year's king of the mountains winner Mauricio Soler, who had to pull out after he was injured in a crash on the second day of the Tour.