American Will Frischkorn, the runner-up in the inaugural Tour of Missouri, jumped into the early breakaway Monday at the Tour de France, and it stayed away, making for a great day for French cycling and another big day for American cycling.

Frenchman Samuel Dumoulin of Cofidis won the 208 kilometer stage from Saint-Malo to Nantes, followed closely by Frischkorn and fellow breakaway riders Romain Feillu of French continental team Agritubel and 14 seconds later Paolo Longo Borghini of Barloworld.

In the finish, Dumoulin attacked first, and then Feillu attacked near the finish, with Frischkorn and Dumoulin giving chase. Finally, Dumoulin surpassed both, and Frischkorn got caught behind Feillu and didn’t have enough to catch Dumoulin after getting around Feillu.

“The sprint at the finish was a long one,” letour.com quoted Frischkorn as saying. “It started from two kilometers out really. Dumoulin hit out and I had literally been planning to attack after coming back from my previous turn of pace but he timed it perfectly. That really started the game.

He rode a great finish and I hesitated just a little bit with 400 meters to go and I think that’s where I made my mistake but I take my hat off to him, he was great. I felt pretty darn good. I’m ecstatic to have done this. It’s weird to feel a little disappointed right now actually.”

Disappointed in not winning, but he and the others reveled in staying away on a flat stage. Usually breakaways are caught in the final couple of kilometers, as sprinters’ teams and the yellow jersey’s team working to catch the breakaway — sprinters’ teams to set up their men for the stage win and the yellow jersey team to protect the lead.  But this foursome stayed away, building a 15-minute lead at one point and taking advantage of a big tailwind in the final 50 kilometers to stay away.

“We talked about the chance of making an escape stick and before the start of the stage and thought it was likely,” letour.com quoted Frischkorn as saying. “I hit out right at kilometer zero and we were gone for the whole day. It was definitely surprising that we stayed away. With about 50km to go we still had an eight minute advantage, and that was when we all started thinking maybe it was possible. With 20km to go, we all started looking at each other realizing that we had a really good shot at it.”

Dumoulin, Frischkorn and Feillu finished 2 minutes 3 seconds of the peloton, enough of a gap to propel Feillu ahead of Alejandro Valverde of Caisse d’Epargne in the overall standings and into the maillot jaune as the leader of the Tour de France.

Longo Borghini is in second place, 35 seconds behind, followed by Frishkorn at 1:42 and Valverde is fourth, 145 back. Valverde is followed one second back by nine riders, including pre-race favourite Cadel Evans, David Miller of Garmin-Chipotle, Kim Kirchen of Columbia and Frank Schleck of CSC-Saxo.

In a significant development for the GC, two contenders got caught up behind a crash and dropped down the leader board. Ricardo Ricco of Saunier Duval-Scott had been in a group of 12 one second behind Valverde in the overall standings after two stages and Denis Menchov of Rabobank had been in the group six seconds back. But they both lost 37 seconds to Valverde on Monday. Ricco is 38 seconds behind Valverde (2:24 behind Feillu) and Menchov is 44 seconds behind Valverde (2:30 behind Feillu).

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