Team High Road dominated today's mass sprint to take the top 2 spots in the standings. Brit Mark Cavendish, in a very charitable way, gifted the win to his German teammate André Greipel by not overtaking his final lead out man. As a result, both Daniele Bennati (Liquigas) and Erik Zabel (Milram) missed out by following the wheel of the guy that actually slowed down in the last 50 meters. Genius!

It was piano, as they say in Italian, for the GC contenders as they took today off while looking forward to the final push in the Alps starting on Friday. Danilo Di Luca (Team LPR Brakes) did go back to his team car a few times though. Apparently, he wants to spend even more energy before the Alps. He's just too strong! Look for him to slip even further down the standings by Sunday.

Top 10 Results for Stage 17
1 André Greipel (Ger) Team High Road..................................3.27.05
2 Mark Cavendish (GBr) Team High Road
3 Daniele Bennati (Ita) Liquigas
4 Erik Zabel (Ger) Team Milram
5 Assan Bazayev (Kaz) Astana
6 Alexandre Usov (Blr) AG2R La Mondiale
7 Enrico Gasparotto (Ita) Barloworld
8 Bram De Groot (Ned) Rabobank
9 Alexander Serov (Rus) Tinkoff Credit Systems
10 Nikolay Trusov (Rus) Tinkoff Credit Systems

See the complete results here.