American team Columbia’s big opening week in the Tour de France has led to the maillot jaune.

Kim Kirchen grabbed the yellow leader’s jersey Thursday as he climbed with the other contenders to the mountaintop finish of Stage 6 at Super-Besse.

Ricardo Ricco of Saunier Duval-Scott won the sprint of contenders to the finish, nosing out pre-tour favourites Alejandro Valverde of Caisse d’Epargne and Silence-Lotto’s Cadel Evans just one second back. Kirchen and Frank Schleck of CSC-Saxo Bank crossed the line together four seconds behind Ricco.

Kirchen entered the stage tied for second in the overall standings with Garmin-Chipotle’s David Millar, 12 seconds behind leader Stefan Schumacher of Gerolsteiner. Schumacher crashed in the finishing stretch after touching wheels with Kirchen, so by staying upright, Kirchen was catapulted into the overall race lead.

The Columbia rider leads Evans by just six seconds in the G.C. and Schumacher by 16. Garmin-Chipotle had said they were trying to set up Millar for the yellow, but Christian Vande Velde attacked on the final climb and ended up 23 seconds behind Ricco and is now fourth overall at 44 seconds behind Kirchen. Millar, meanwhile, lost 51 seconds in the stage and fell into fifth place 47 seconds behind Kirchen and three seconds behind Vande Velde.

“The whole day I believed it was possible to take the yellow jersey,” le tour.com quoted Kirchen as saying. “It was actually ‘My’ finish; it suited me so well. I was feeling really, really good and I had tried everything. Now I’m happy I’ve got it.

“In the sprint I had to brake because it was all closed down the right side. In my sprint to the finish, there was a little gap open up between me and the first few guys and I couldn’t close it. I had some good speed and a reasonable position. I’m a little bit sorry that I couldn’t win the stage but I have two jerseys right now and that’s enough.

“I actually didn’t know that Schumacher had fallen. I was just aware of what was happening to me. The whole week I’ve been so close to the yellow jersey and I think it’s a good thing to have it now.

“Every day has been pretty hard. It was the same again today. We’ll see what happens tomorrow; we start with a climb and I hope there’ll be a breakaway again and we can control the race but in the Tour there’s never any time to rest and it’s going to be hard again.”

Columbia has been stellar in the first week of the Tour. Kirchen was in the hunt for stage wins in the first two days, he, Thomas Lovkvist and Big George Hincapie killed in the Stage 4 time trial and Mark Cavendish won Stage 5. And now the team has the yellow jersey!

“I think we have to look at our plans carefully right now,” letour.com quoted team owner Bob Stapleton as saying. “We had hoped for this but you cannot plan on it happening. You do everything you can to win and in this case we got a break and Kim was there to capitalize on it. The yellow jersey is too big a prize to ignore. We have to do what we can to hold onto it. The thing is, it’s very early in the race.

“We brought a very mixed team. We’ve got the youngest line-up here at the Tour and it’s going to be a lot of work for them but they’re super motivated and they work really well together. I’m just really proud of the team work I’ve seen. It’s shown stage-by-stage that they really perform well together and are prepared to sacrifice themselves for each other.

“I think we’re going to have to be very careful with what goes on now. We’ve still got some chances for the young guys to do somethings. We’ll have to see how the race shapes up. It’d be a tall order to keep that jersey but we’ll see where the competition is at and see what’s possible.”

Lovkvist moved into sixth overall Thursday and is 54 seconds behind Kirchen. Behind Lovkvist, Denis Menchov of Rabobank, Valverde, Stijn Devolder of Quick Step and Oscar Pereiro of Caisse d’Epargne round out the top 10 as all finished in the top 15 Thursday.

Columbia’s Big George Hincapie, working for Kirchen, dropped out of the top 10 to 15th, 1:45 behind Kirchen.

Despite the stage win, Ricco climbed only to 31st place, 3:52 behind Kirchen because of a poor time trial.