New Delhi: Italian Daniele Benatti, of the Lampre team, won the 188.5 kilometer stage 17 of the Tour de France even as the biggest cycling event came to terms with the expulsion of race leader Michael Rasmussen.
The Italian took four hours and 14 minutes to complete the stage after which the Tour got a new leader in Spaniard Alberto Contador.
There was no yellow jersey in the field at the start of the day but at the end Contador took the over all lead and with it the yellow jersey.
Contador is one minute and 53 seconds ahead of his Australian rival Cadel Evans and a favourite to win the Tour after Rasmussen was kicked out.
When the 17th stage began, no one wore the yellow jersey in keeping with the Tour rules.
"It is strange to take yellow in such circumstances," Contador was quoted as saying by Reuters. "But it can happen, sometimes it is because the leader has crashed."
Contador also declined to comment on Rasmussen and said that he was not there to judge the Dane's expulsion.
Rasmussen was the leader of the Tour since the eighth stage and had also won the on Wednesday.
Germany's Markus Fothen of the Gerolsteiner team came in second behind Benatti with Switzerland's Martin Elminger coming in third for the AG2r team.
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