Boonen survives bomb

Tour de France organisers instigated an existing -- and only fair -- last-kilometre crash rule, awarding every stage finisher bogged down in the pile-up the same time as winner Tom Boonen.

The overall standings, therefore, remained unchanged, with 25-year-old Frenchman Thomas Voeckler (Brioches La Boulangere) keeping the yellow jersey of race's leader, 3 min 1 sec better than Thursday's Stage 5 winner Stuart O'Grady (Cofidis).

O'Grady, second behind Boonen on Friday's race, usurped the Tour's green best-sprinter jersey, swiping it off the shoulders of his fellow Australian Robbie McEwen (Lotto) who was among the worst-for-wear in the final-kilometre crash, straggling in to the finish with a pound of flesh rubbed off his left buttock.

In a déjà-vu nod to Thursday's storyline, Stage 6 was goverened by an oportunistic six-man break -- Juan Antonio Flecha (Fassa Bortolo), Kurt-Asle Arvesen (CSC), Jimmy Engoulvent (Cofidis), Alessandro Bertolini (Alessio), Marc Lotz (Rabobank) and Carlos Da Cruz (FDJ.com) -- which gunned off the front just 21km into the day's 196-km route between Bonneval and Angers, France.

With a hard-hunting pack breathing down its neck in the final 10km of racing, the breakaway exploded in do-or-die tactics, each rider playing a desperate final card for the win.

Flecha, a Tour de France stage winner in Toulouse last year, had the best hand, keeping the peloton at bay before being overhauled an agonising two kilometres from the finish.

The sprint teams -- without the help of the Fassa Bortolo and Domina Vacanze trains of Alessandro Petacchi and Mario Cipollini, both pre-stage race forfeits -- ticked into gear, thundering through a sinewy final kilometre-and-a-half before getting axed by an H-bomb of a crash, just 900 metres from the line.

A touch of wheels followed by a loss of equilibrium, and a full two-thirds of the bunch was either pitched to the tarmac or held up by the mass of busted bikes clogging the width of the road.

"The goal was to be in the top 10 or 15 in the last kilometres," stage laureate Boonen said after the finish, reliving his victory and narrow escape from the mass crash.

"[Stefano] Zanini did a monster job to get me to the last corner," the 23-year-old Boonen -- also winner of this year's Ghent-Wevelgem -- said, lauding the lead-out efforts of his Italian Quick Step teammate.

"I had great sensations from the first kilometres," Boonen continued.

"In the final 100 metres I launched my sprint... And voila!"