Froome Wins Stage 7 as Wiggins Goes Yellow

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Team Sky enjoyed the finest day so far in their short history as Chris Froome claimed a spectacular win on stage seven of the Tour de France and Bradley Wiggins finished third to move into the leader's yellow jersey.

The 199 kilometres route from Tomblaine to La Planche des Belles Filles finished with the first big climb of the race and Team Sky put down a stunning marker to the rest of the field.

Coming into the foot of the 5.9km ascent, which had an average gradient of 8.5%, Edvald Boasson Hagen took up the pacesetting on the front of the peloton, with team-mates Michael Rogers, Richie Porte, Froome and Wiggins right behind him.

The fierce pace and the gradient combined to split the bunch in two and by the time Porte came to the head of affairs, the front group had been reduced to just eight men.

It was soon down to five, with reigning champion Cadel Evans (BMC Racing), Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas-Cannondale) and Rein Taaramae (Cofidis) the only riders able to stay with Froome and Wiggins.

Australian Evans accelerated away with one kilometre to go and Froome, Wiggins and Nibali went with him.

Froome then summoned the energy to overtake Evans and dart for the line for a stunning first Tour stage win.

There was an even greater prize for third-placed Wiggins, who justified his pre-Tour favourite billing after wins in the Paris-Nice, Tour de Romandie and Criterium du Dauphine stage races.

It all means that Wiggins now leads the overall standings by 10 seconds from Evans, with Nibali a further six seconds back in third.

Wiggins is only the fifth Briton to don the maillot jaune, following Tom Simpson (1962), Chris Boardman (1994, 1997 and 1998), Sean Yates (1994) and David Millar (2000). He has now held the leader's jersey in all three Grand Tours.

It is also the first time Team Sky have led cycling's biggest event.

Froome is up to ninth on the GC and also tops the mountains classification.

The day's stage began with the peloton counting the cost of the crash 26km from the end of stage six to Metz, with Giro d'Italia champion Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin-Sharp) among those who abandoned.

Anthony Delaplace (Saur-Sojasun) joined him, taking the total number of withdrawals to 17.

It was the most after seven days' racing since 1998, when the 17 withdrawals included the Festina team who were expelled following a doping scandal.

The best-placed of the day's seven-man escape group was Christophe Riblon (Ag2r La Mondiale), who began the day in 55th place, five minutes four seconds behind Cancellara.

The numbers in the breakaway persuaded Mark Cavendish not to contest the day's intermediate sprint and the world champion was later seen on domestique duty, returning to the Team Sky support car to retrieve water bottles for his team-mates and carrying them in his rainbow jersey.

After two category three climbs, the escape had an advantage of three and a half minutes with 30km remaining.

Team Sky and BMC Racing were prominent at the front of the peloton and, despite losing Hesjedal, Garmin-Sharp worked hard to reduce the deficit to the escape, apparently in a bid to help set up Dan Martin.

The breakaway's lead fell to under two minutes with 20km remaining and less than a minute with 12km to go.

Jurgen van den Broeck (Lotto-Belisol) lost touch at a crucial moment as Team Sky led the pursuit of the escapees, who were caught on the lower ramps of the finishing climb.

Then the first fireworks of the Tour took place as Cancellara was dropped, with Frank Schleck and Sylvain Chavanel (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) among those who followed as Team Sky's tempo decimated the field and they took full advantage.