Linus Gerdemann won stage seven of the Tour de France by a clear margin and also claimed the yellow jersey.

The 24-year-old German, who cycles for T-Mobile, led the first mountain stage of the Tour from around 20km and eventually won by 42 seconds ahead of second-placed Inigo Landaluze, with David de la Fuente in third.

It was Gerdemann's first ever stage win, and he made it a triple celebration by overtaking Fabian Cancellara in the overall rankings and claiming the white jersey as the leading young rider.

Friday's first day of three in the Alps provided plenty of drama, but with another five days of climbing none of the yellow jersey contenders dared show their hands too early.

The latter stages of the race were brought to life by race debutant Gerdemann, who attacked an earlier 15-man breakaway group inside the last 21km.

Gerdemann had been riding alongside Credit Agricole's Dimitriy Fofonov, the Kazakh having done most of the work as they fought to distance some of their earlier companions on the Col de la Colombiere. But Gerdemann attacked seven kilometres from the summit of the 16km-long ascent.

Concerns over the condition of yellow jersey contenders Alexandre Vinokourov and Andreas Kloden were unfounded, the Astana pair finishing the stage intact. Kloden was riding his second day since fracturing his tailbone on Thursday's fifth stage, while Vinokourov appeared relatively unaffected by the cuts in his knees which required over 30 stitches.