I'm so disappointed about yesterday's stage. I finished fourth, but I think somebody must have put a curse on me for this Tour -- some black magic or something. The first climb was a bit of a mess. The hors category Col du Grand-Saint-Bernard came after just 16 kilometres of racing and there were large groups all over the place after only a few kilometres of climbing.

My team had nobody in the 25-man lead group, so there was big panic in the team car. They were going crazy that there was no Ag2r rider in the front.

There were bodies everywhere, with my Spanish team-mate Jose Luis Arrieta the first to try and get across the gap to one of the big groups.

Then myself and Stephane Goubert rode past him and got across to the second or third group. The pace just continuously accelerated until there were only four of us left and we continued to ride hard until we made it to the front of the race.

The 28kms of climbing to over 2,500 metres that followed, took me an hour and eight minutes to get to the top. When I crossed the summit, there were only two guys ahead and I was with 17 chasers, including team-mate Goubert.

steadily

We all rode pretty steadily until a few kilometres into the second climb of the day, the little sister of the first climb, the Col Du Petit Saint-Bernard. With the top of the ascent just 30 kilometres from the finish, the attacks came left right and centre on the way up and it was really hard to hold the wheels.

Goubert is pretty experienced and when I saw that he was just riding steadily, ignoring most of the attacks and was still getting back up to groups, I just followed suit. I rode in my lowest gear of 39x23 and, for a long while, I was last man in the group. I just kept riding around guys that were getting dropped and 50 minutes of climbing later there were only four of us left.

On the descent, myself, Goubert and French riders Sandy Casar and Pierrick Fedrigo, who has already won a stage on this Tour, were chasing four others -- Amiel Moinard from Cofidis, Jurgen Van De Broeck from Silence-Lotto, Mikel Astarloza from Euskaltel and King of the Mountains Franco Pellizotti from Liquigas.

These four had gone clear towards the top of the mountain and crested the summit with about a minute in hand. With the peloton over two minutes back, the stage victory was going to come down to a battle between the two groups and we thundered down the roller-coaster, switchback-laden descent to try and close the gap.

I knew if we could catch the four guys in front, I had my best chance of getting a Tour de France stage win. We could see them ahead as the gap closed to 25 seconds, then they disappeared as we went through a forest. The gap came down slowly to 20 seconds, 15 seconds. All four of us were riding flat out and with Goubert in the move with me, I was feeling really confident of winning the stage -- if we could catch the front group. The kilometres ticked away agonisingly and it seemed like it took us for ever to make contact, but we eventually reached the back wheel of the leaders with about a kilometre and a half to go.

Unfortunately for me, the Basque rider, Astarloza, knowing that if we caught him, there was no way he would win a sprint from the group, had just jumped clear of the leaders before we made contact. Most of the others had given up on victory. They knew even if they chased and caught Asterloza, they wouldn't have the energy to win afterwards.

With one kilometre to go, Goubert went to the front and gave it everything for me to try and win the stage. At 39-years of age, this is Stephane's last Tour. In 12 seasons as a pro, he has never won a race and yesterday was probably his best chance of ever doing so.

Instead of thinking of himself though, Stephane went to the front of the group and drove it along behind Asterloza, sacrificing his dreams to give me the best chance of winning in the sprint. Stephane's selflessness really motivated me. I was sitting waiting, ready to go.

jumped

Stephane blew up with 300 metres to go and although we hadn't caught Asterloza, I jumped hard. I've been in this position three times at major Tours now. I've been second twice, once at the Tour of Spain and once last week and something has always gone wrong. Yesterday, as I started my sprint with 300 metres to go, my chain came off, falling over the big chainring onto my pedal side. I was last man out of the last corner and finished fourth. If there had been another 300 metres, I would have got second. Like I said, someone must have put a curse on me.

As if myself and Stephane weren't disappointed enough, straight away the team manager was giving out that we only got fourth and we didn't get enough UCI points. He is worried that with the ProTour being cut from 20 to 17 teams next year that we won't have enough points to stay up there, which would mean missing the biggest races.

Today is probably going to be the hardest stage of the Tour. I really want to do something this week, so I don't know how I'll recover after yesterday's efforts. I guess we'll both find out tomorrow.

- Nicolas Roche