Seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong said Tuesday's radio-silenced stage was the slowest he could remember after more than a decade of the competition.

The 37-year-old breezed past waiting reporters after Britain's Mark Cavendish won his third stage of this year's Tour when he claimed the 10th stage and his seventh in three participations.

Italian cyclist Rinaldo Nocentini retained the overall leader's yellow jersey, but third-placed Armstrong, who is eight seconds behind the leader, said it had been the slowest day's racing he could remember.

"Stage 10 done, probably one of the more relaxed days I have experienced in ten plus Tours," said cancer-survivor Armstrong, who is back after his four year hiatus, on his Twitter page.

"Things got rolling at the end and we (his Astana team) were going. My legs feel good."

This was the first stage in years to be held entirely without radio communication, as will Friday's 13th stage from Vittel to Colmar, after Tour organisers insisted on a radio ban between riders and their team managers.

A protest petition, signed by 14 of the Tour's 20 teams, was submitted to the race organisers last Saturday, but the race went ahead without the use of radios.

Astana team manager Johan Bruyneel, who has been an outspoken opponent of the radio ban, said the organisers had failed in their bid to bring exciting racing to the stage.

"The reason behind having no radios was to have more attractive racing and that's obviously not what happened," said the Belgian.

"If that is what they wanted to accomplish, it has been a failure and I just think it is a bad idea to go back 20 years and do something like this stupidly in the biggest race of the year.

"Especially losing a tool we use everyday of the year."

(AFP via China Daily July 16, 2009)