Today's Rouge Report

Whether it was the phone call Adriano got from his boyhood pals reminding him that their beloved footballers had exited the World Cup in utter disgrace or it was the post-Bastille Day hangover of the two Frenchmen Samuel Dumoulin and new rouge Anthony Roux, a stage that should have seen the statis quo in the rouge race indeed saw a bit of shuffling off the back.

After Stage 11 thing shifted around a bit - but the contenders are all still there - including American Tyler Farrar, although Mark Renshaw nearly sealed Tyler's fate by taking him into the barriers in the final meters of today's sprint - instead the officials sealed Renshaw's.

168	Tyler Farrar (USA) Garmin - Transitions	1:50:18
169	Marcus Burghardt (Ger) BMC Racing Team	1:50:56
170	Bert Grabsch (Ger) Team HTC - Columbia	1:52:23
171	Andreas Klier (Ger) Cervelo Test Team	1:56:25
172	Dimitri Champion (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale	1:56:28
173	Jesus Hernandez Blazquez (Spa) Astana	1:56:48
174	Dmitriy Muravyev (Kaz) Team Radioshack	1:57:10
175	Francesco Reda (Ita) Quick Step	1:57:58
176	Adriano Malori (Ita) Lampre-Farnese Vini	2:04:09
177	Samuel Dumoulin (Fra) Cofidis, Le Credit en Ligne	2:05:18
178	Anthony Roux (Fra) Française des Jeux	2:05:51

A footnote: Bill Strickland's piece on Bicycling.com suggesting Lance pull a Lanterne - while it would be a first in many categories, and definitely turn up the international on light in the lantern - if we are going to have an American he should earn it in the grand tradition of rouge - go Tyler Farrar!

PS - all my Rouge Reports will be tag as such in the Labels if you want to compare riders/postings as a group