Russia's Sergei Ivanov, riding for the Katusha team, won Saturday's 14th stage of the Tour de France with Rinaldo Nocentini narrowly retaining the overall lead.

The Russian national champion made a stage-winning breakaway move 11 kilometres out to hold off Ireland's Nicolas Roche, who came in 16 seconds behind.

New Zealand's Hayden Roulston and Martijn Maaskant of the Netherlands took the minor placings in this 199 kilometre run marked by tragedy with the death of a spectator following a collision with a police motorbike along the route.

Ivanov was adding this to his first stage victory on the Tour de France eight years ago.

Aside from Ivanov the day's big winner was George Hincapie, the American rider who set off from Colmar in the morning over five minutes behind but now lies just 5s off Nocentini in second place in the overall standings.

Ahead of the first day of three in the Alps the battle for overall victory was again put on the back burner as the teams so far devoid of stage success went on the hunt.

However, after an earlier 13-man breakaway was reduced to 12 and went on to build a significant lead on the peloton it was Hincapie who came through to almost replace Nocentini, of AG2R, as the new race leader.

With Irish teammate Roche in the front group, which held a seven-minute lead at the summit of the day's second and last climb 87km from the finish, AG2R were not obliged to chase the leaders down.

But after some prompting by Nocentini, and the Astana team of Alberto Contador and Lance Armstrong, AG2R finally put three riders on the front of the chasing bunch with a little under 50km to race.

That signalled the chase was on, but with 40km to race and the peloton at 7:40 behind Hincapie, who started the day in 28th position, the American was still in the virtual yellow jersey.

Because of Hincapie's presence Columbia were under no pressure to help in the chase meaning, theoretically, they could keep their riders fresh for leading out Mark Cavendish for the win if it came to a bunch sprint.

Hincapie, however, reaffirmed his intentions with a brief acceleration with 35km to race.

His gesture looked designed to try to shake off some of the group's sprinters, like Gerald Ciolek, but it was also to signal his belief the group was not going fast enough.

With 30km to go AG2R's efforts with Astana on their wheels appeared to be making progress, but the determination of the frontrunners kept their advantage steady and with 13km left it was still 6:30.

A kilometre further on the front finally lost patience and attacks came and went before Ivanov's stage-winning surge.

Sapa

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