The 2009 Tour de France exited the Pyrenees last night, a stalemate hanging over the race. Three days of racing through the high passes failed to separate Alberto Contador, of Spain, from Lance Armstrong, the seven-times champion, and the pair seem destined to duel their way through the Alps in the final week of the race.

An anticlimactic ninth stage — negated by the 70-kilometre flat approach to the finish from the summit of the giant Col du Tourmalet — ended in Tarbes with the third French win in five days, as Pierrick Fédrigo outsprinted Franco Pellizotti, of Italy.

In an effort to prolong the suspense as late as the penultimate stage, which wends its way to the summit of Mont Ventoux, the Tour organisers have steered clear of too many finishes at altitude in the Pyrenees. However, this has backfired over the past 48 hours or so, with legendary climbs that were once decisive being emasculated by their long distances from the finish.

The design of this year’s Pyrenean stages has also denied further opportunities to Contador, an expert climber, and played into the hands of Armstrong, whose victory hopes were put into perspective last Friday by the vicious acceleration of his Astana team-mate — and rival — in Andorra.

Another summit finish over the weekend would surely have put the Spaniard in the yellow jersey by now. Instead, as Armstrong himself expects, we may have to wait until the race crosses into Switzerland on stage 15 for the ski-station finish in Verbier to witness the decisive instalment in the Astana soap opera.

“There’s not going to be a lot of change until Verbier,” Armstrong said. “We’ll see who’s really the strongest.” Armstrong, much as he did in the Giro d’Italia in May, when he hinted at his best form in the final week of the Italian tour, is expected to get stronger as the race progresses.

The American believes that the stretch of Alpine racing, from the Jura to Provence, will end any debate.

“That’s where the race is going to be decided,” he said. “The combination of those days, from Colmar all the way to the top of Mont Ventoux — it’s a very difficult six days. We’ll wait — the hardest mountain in France is on the last day basically, so you can’t forget that.

“Honestly, if I was Cadel Evans, or Andy Schleck, or Carlos Sastre, I would be waiting. I would wait for my moment in the Alps, on Ventoux, or wherever, and I would stick it in as hard as I could. I would just pull the knife out and go.”

Yesterday’s stage may have crossed the giant cols of Aspin and Tourmalet, but so tame was the rest of the route that a supposed mountain stage almost climaxed in a bunch sprint. Absent from the leading peloton, however, was Mark Cavendish, the Briton who over the weekend ceded the lead in the points classification to Thor Hushovd, his rival sprinter, of Norway.

Cavendish will have a chance to recuperate from the mountains. Today is a rest day in Limoges, but subsequent stages this week, to Issoudun, Saint-Fargeau and possibly Vittel, may hold further rewards for the 24-year-old.

But while in the mountains Cavendish has slipped to the rear of the race, Bradley Wiggins, a fellow Olympian, has been a revelation. Now fifth overall, the Londoner, who has lost a stone since the Beijing Olympics last summer, has appeared to relish riding through the mountains alongside Armstrong and Contador.