MONTPELLIER, France – Alexandre Vinokourov’s knees may have healed just in time for him to launch a surprise comeback at the Tour de France _ a day after he considered pulling out and two days since he cried in the Alps.

A week after busting both knees in a crash on stage five, Vinokourov could not contain his joy at finally showing some attacking form on Thursday’s 11th stage.

“I asked my teammates to attack because I felt good,” Vinokourov said. “It’s clear that I got my morale back today.”

Vinokourov had been in such pain during Tuesday’s final Alpine stage that he wiped tears away when speaking to French television. And, after struggling through Wednesday’s 10th stage, he’d felt he could not take much more.

“If you ask my teammates, they will tell you I was inches away from abandoning yesterday (Wednesday),” Vinokourov said. “The osteopath worked on my knees last night until midnight, especially the left one which was quite blocked.”

After a week when most observers wrote off Vinokourov’s chances, the sight of the Kazakhstan rider attacking during the 113-mile route from Marseille to Montpellier was surprising.

With about 40 miles left, Vinokourov’s Astana team accelerated, splitting the main pack in two _ leaving French Tour hopeful Christophe Moreau and the small group trailing far behind.

That worked in the favor of overall race leader Michael Rasmussen.

“I think he definitely lost his chance of winning the Tour today,” Rasmussen said of Moreau.

Robert Hunter won a close sprint to give South Africa its first ever stage win.

“I’ve done the Tour de France six times, and I’m the first South African ever to ride in it,” Hunter said.

Hunter won in 3 hours, 47 minutes, 50 seconds, outpacing second-place Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland _ who wore the yellow jersey for the first week _ and Murilo Fischer of Brazil in third.

Rasmussen is 2:35 ahead of second-place Alejandro Valverde and 2:39 in front of Iban Mayo in third.

But not everything is going in Rasmsussen’s favor.

Late Thursday, an announcement from the Danish cycling federation said that he had been dropped from the national team for failing to keep authorities informed over his whereabouts _ for now ruling him out of next year’s Olympic Games.

The sport’s rules require riders to tell sports officials where they are and plan to be so they can be available for possible random doping tests.

“When you have received three warnings within the past 18 months, there is a reason to run a doping case,” DCU director Jesper Worre told the Politiken newspaper’s Web edition.

Rasmussen told Denmark’s public television that he only knew about one warning.

“There must be someone at the top that doesn’t want to do me any good,” the Dane was quoted as saying by Politiken. “I have tried to give an explanation about what happened but they don’t want to accept it.”

Vinokourov’s performance, meanwhile, impressed other riders.

“This is the official comeback for Vino,” veteran German cyclist Jens Voigt said. “He’s a fighter, a great man, who never quits. Don’t write him off, he’ll definitely try to win a stage.”

Talk in the last few days speculated that Astana’s sporting director Mario Kummer would make Andreas Kloeden No. 1, and drop “Vino” back to No. 2 because of his bad knees.

That appeared increasingly the case when Vinokourov finished three days of toiling up the Alps, but Kummer appeared to volte-face after Vinokourov’s dashing performance Thursday.

“Our captain is and will be Vino,” Kummer said. “Today was a good and important signal from Vino.”

Astana team manager Marc Biver sounded even more confident.

“It’s a good sign for the time trial and the Pyrenees,” Biver said, looking toward Saturday’s clock race and more tough mountains ahead. “The way he rode today shows he’s a champion … you know you can always count on him.”

The day’s biggest loser in the overall race was Moreau, who dropped to 14th place to be 6:38 behind Rasmussen.

Moreau crashed at the 19-mile mark, shredding his uniform over his left thigh.

“He’s not beaten,” AG2R team manager Vincent Lavenu said. “”I believe in it (the podium).”

The Tour heads into the medium-sized mountains Friday for the 12th stage, taking riders on a 111 mile jaunt from Montpellier to Castres.

A service of the Associated Press(AP)