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Monday, July 7, 2008 Menchov's yellow jersey hopes dented at Tour by Agence France-Presse at 3:35 PM EST   comments Categories: Pro Cycling, Tour de France   Russian Denis Menchov became the first victim of the Tour de France's yellow jersey contenders here Monday when he got caught napping in a hectic finish to the 208km stage. Menchov, a two-time Tour of Spain winner, found himself in a group that had been left trailing by some furious accelerations at the front of the peloton as they continued their futile pursuit of a four-man break. In the end, Cofidis sprinter Samuel Dumoulin went on to win his first stage of the race with a superbly-timed drive for the line while compatriot Romain Feillu made it a French double by pulling on the yellow jersey. All the big favourites for the final victory in Paris crossed the line just over two minutes behind, Menchov being the only one of the big guns to lose time after he trailed in over 30secs later. It could have been worse, Rabobank having worked furiously to close the gap to the first chasing bunch in the closing kilometres. But Rabobank were still furious, especially as they had spoken about that particular part of the course which, with detrimental crosswinds, made the chase and the race even tougher. "I'm obviously not very satisfied with the result of today's stage," said Rabobank team manager Erik Breukink. "This is the Tour de France, so the time we lost today was valuable, especially when it could have been prevented. "I can't explain it. We spoke about the dangers on this stage, and that particular point which, with the crosswinds, was susceptible to causing splits in the peloton." Menchov has returned to the Tour as Rabobank's main yellow jersey hope a year after the controversy prompted by Danish climber Michael Rasmussen missing a series of doping tests and then eventually being sacked and thrown off the race for lying over his whereabouts. Despite being seen by many as a dark horse for the yellow jersey, Menchov's setback will question whether he can win this year's race, for which Cadel Evans of Australia and Spaniard Alejandro Valverde are the main favourites. "I was too far behind when the peloton decided to break away. Losing 38 seconds is not my idea of what I had planned for today," said Menchov. "But I'm not that far behind in the general classification and I'm not giving up hope just yet." Menchov will aim to make up for lost time in Tuesday's time trial, over 29.5km, and Breukink will now try to forget the team's setback. "The team worked really hard at the end of the stage to limit the damage. Now we have to get behind Denis to make sure he approaches the time trial in the best possible way."       comments Follow @Pro_Cycling Tweet Subscribe via RSS or daily email Contact the editor about this article