Cycling: British Riders Descend Into Contention

Holme Moss and the Snake Pass are mere pimples compared with the mountains of Mauricio Ardila's native Colombia but the 25-year-old will remember their heather-clad slopes with affection after taking his first major professional win there yesterday and claiming the leader's yellow jersey after criss-crossing the Pennines for 107 miles.

The bird-like little climber won the stage by choosing the perfect moment to escape from the six other front runners in the final kilometre, zipping off up Charter Row, whizzing down Furnival Gate and sprinting up Pinstone Street to cross the line outside the town hall as 22 chasers closed to 50 metres behind.

"Everyone started watching everyone else with 500 metres to go so I went for it," said Ardila, whose only two previous wins were stages in the Tour de France of the Future and the Tour of Sweden. "The hills were small today but I knew it would be hard. I know nothing about this race, but I was amazed by the crowds. It was incredible having to fight your way through them on the climbs."

It was a win worthy of any sprinter but it was forged in the hills where the pattern of the race constantly changed. The field put Wednesday's grumblings and strike threats behind them to sort out an initial hierarchy on the toughest stage of the race over high moorland climbs, once used for the Leeds Classic World Cup event.

The Italian Stefano Zanini, who started the race in the yellow jersey, had stomach trouble and twice ran off the road to find a quiet place to relieve himself. He finished 13 minutes back and is not among the 29 riders who are breathing down Ardila's neck in the overall standings, between five and 20 seconds behind.

One of those 29 will win this race. They include Lance Armstrong's sidekick José Luis Rubiera - whose attack on the Snake Pass launched the seven-man escape that fought out the stage - the British national champion Roger Hammond, the former world No1 Michele Bartoli of Italy and East Yorkshire's Charly Wegelius, whose mother Jane provided encouragement from the Great Britain team car yesterday.

Britain's triple Olympic medallist Bradley Wiggins was not among them. He struggled as soon as the race hit the slopes of Holme Moss, a four-mile drag through spectators standing two and three deep, to a radio mast high in Last of the Summer Wine country above the town of Holmfirth. He finished some 20 minutes behind, but a stage win may not be beyond him.

At a meeting on Wednesday night between the organisers and senior team managers, better protection from heavy traffic had been promised to the racers after the nerve-racking stage through Lancashire and there were no large-scale repetitions of the dangerous scenes that had marred the passage through Blackpool and Manchester.

Today the race travels through the east midlands, with a largely flat run-in to Nottingham, and the battle will be for the time bonuses at the three intermediate sprints and the finish. Of the 29 in the hunt for the yellow jersey, the two sprinters of note are Julian Dean of New Zealand and Hammond. The Briton staked everything on a descent through the race convoy at up to 60mph off the Snake Pass to rejoin the leaders after being unable to remain with them on the climb.

Meanwhile, the Italian Francesco Casagrande and the Spaniard Carlos Golbano were refused entry to the Tour of Spain, which starts tomorrow in the northern city of Leon. They both failed a routine blood test which can indicate the use of the banned blood-booster erythropoietin.