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Something very strange happened in Stage 13 of this year's Tour de France.

Five riders broke away after only 21km in the 230km stage. Their breakaway turned out to be a winning one and in the end, Germany's Jens Voigt out-sprinted Spain's Oscar Pereiro Sio to win the stage. The third- and fourth-placed riders came home 40 seconds behind the leaders, while the fifth-placed rider was over six minutes back.

Then things got interesting.

It took exactly 29 minutes and 57 seconds after Voigt and Pereiro had finished the stage did we see the peloton cross the finish line in a bunch finish.

Since Spanish rider Jose Luis Viejo won a stage in the Tour de France in 1976 by 22 minutes and 50 seconds, only once had a winning breakaway won by that much of a margin. That was Stage 8 of the Tour de France 2001 when the winner, Erik Dekker, was 35 minutes and 54 seconds ahead of the peloton.

Only two riders were dropped by the peloton, evidence that the peloton was simply coasting and bathing in the sunshine. However, such cruising had cost Floyd Landis, the American rider of the Phonak team, his yellow jersey.

Pereiro, who started the day in 28th place, 28 minutes and 50 seconds behind Landis, had unexpectedly become the seventh rider to wear the maillot jaune in this year's Tour.

Riders often gain or lose minutes or even hours in mountain stages, when the peloton decides to saddle up and ride together at a very low speed. That way none of them will be disqualified for finishing the stage outside the time limit, as the organiser is highly unlikely to disqualify all of them.

However, Stage 13 is not a mountain stage, and its four fourth-category climbs are nothing when compared with the fearsome hors-category climbs. And a 30-minute gain in a relatively flat stage is almost unheard of.

The Phonak riders, who were riding at the front of the peloton during most of the race, were responsible for protecting the yellow jersey of their team leader, Landis, by controlling the pace. But they decided not to give chase and simply allowed the lead to grow, eventually handing over the yellow jersey to Pereiro.

They just blew it.

But what happened?

The obvious answer is to preserve energy for the upcoming grueling mountain stages. However, given that Pereiro was a member of the Phonak team from 2004 to 2005, some suspect that it may be a "gift" by the team by allowing him to don the yellow jersey.

Yet such generosity is likely to backfire, as Pereiro is capable of winning the Tour himself. Although he has lost minutes to Landis in the two individual time trials in this year's Tour, he finished 10th in both 2004 (16 minutes back) and 2005 (22 minutes back), and also won the Combativity award in 2005, after engineering a couple of winning breakaways. Incidentally, Landis finished 9th in last year's Tour, with a time gap of mere three minutes between Pereiro and himself.

The team manager of Phonak claimed that he was happy with the team's strategy. Yet many believe that it's a decision which will come back and haunt them.