Like Phil and Paul bingo ("dancing on the pedals" ... "my goodness me" ... "suffering like he has never suffered before" ... "he's in a spot of bother"), the game of whether or not to write off Alberto Contador is turning into one of the fun activities of the Tour.

Have the Schlecks, Ivan Basso and Cadel Evans closed the gap? Is Contador still a shade better than everyone else but being held back by his banged-up knee? Alternatively, as the only one of the yellow jersey contenders to have ridden this year's Giro d'Italia, is the Pistolero simply too knackered to ride away from the others in the mountains?

To those of us playing along from home it looks like a little from column B and a little from column C.

Ahead of the Pyrenees, Spanish media were reporting that Contador was turning to acupuncture in a desperate attempt to fix his banged-up knee.

On Wednesday, Contador himself claimed the knee was good and he was feeling happy, although he did have the foresight to add: "Although we can't forget that I haven't yet climbed the Tourmalet."

Now he has climbed the Tourmalet and hauled himself up Luz-Ardiden, he is a further 13 seconds behind Evans and Andy Schleck and a further 33 seconds down on Frank.

After the stage on Thursday, Contador admitted the knee had been holding him back. But in a brilliant twist, he managed to interpret that as a positive.

"I am almost certain that I am getting better every day," he said. "With a little bit of ice, my knee will be in condition on Saturday.

"Now everyone will be fatigued and that is in my favour."

As the two games go, Phil and Paul bingo looks by far the easier to win. The Broom Wagon only needs "boom boom and out go the lights" to complete this year's card.

Peloton fact of the week

Jens Voigt can identify the sex of bees.

Small beer

Sean Yates is no longer on Twitter, so the Broom Wagon can't ask the Team Sky director what he was doing when Geraint Thomas went over the Tourmalet on Thursday.

Thomas was at the head of the six-man breakaway approaching the summit, where the leading rider is awarded a 5000-euro prize in honour of Jacques Goddet, the Tour's second race organiser.

Five thousand euros, although a drop in the gold-plated jacuzzi in, say, hip hop or international football, is a decent whack of money in cycling. Omega Pharma-Lotto were the most successful team in the opening nine days of this year's Tour. Thanks mostly to Philippe Gilbert, they won a grand total of €36,380 in prizemoney. Liquigas, the least successful team, earned just €1730 in the same period.

Unaware of the prize waiting at the top on Thursday, Thomas eased back and allowed FDJ's Jeremy Roy to cross the line first.

"No wonder he went for it," the Sky rider said. "5000 euros. You can do a lot with that, buy a lot of beers with that."

929 beers, in fact. Yates could be buying rounds for a while.

Tour firsties*, week two

Tejay van Garderen is the first American to lead the mountain classification since Greg LeMond in 1986.

Luz Ardiden was the scene of Euskaltel-Euskadi's first Tour de France win, by Roberto Laiseka in 2001. Sammy Sanchez's win on the same climb is the team's first in 170 Tour stages. Theirs is the longest wait by any team for a stage win.

Andre Greipel is this year's first debutant to win a Tour stage. The only man to achieve the feat last year was Joaquim Rodriguez.

Mark Cavendish, wearing the green jersey for the first time since 2009, is also the first since Bernard Hinault to win multiple stages at four consecutive Tours. He is also the first 18-time stage-winner to be photographed weeing off a bridge.

*Hat! to our friends at Infostrada Sports

Tour anagrams

Ivan Basso – avian boss Thomas Voeckler – short, meek, vocal

Dispatches from the Twitterverse

Well, they've started. Mountains. #marvellous - @MarkCavendish

Hi ho hi ho.....I know where the mountains can go! - @mattgoss1986

How a massage is good after more than 6h on the bike and more than 5000cal. I was just at the end, but I'll go day by day. Congrats, Samu!!! - @albertocontador

1 point today I got bad stomach cramp & farted unintentionally. Really thought I'd..ahem..followed through. So sorry to Liquigas guy behind. - @MarkCavendish is all class

Classic TourTube

Stage winners at Plateau de Beille, which the Tour visits on Saturday, have a habit of going on to win the yellow jersey. Before Alberto Contador (2007) and Lance Armstrong (2002), there was Marco Pantani in 1998. Trailing Jan Ullrich by five minutes at the foot of the 16km climb, Pantani attacked and gained 1m 40s. Four stages later on Les Deux Alpes, he did this.