Schleck wins in Luxembourg

Breschel held off a challenge from Astana's Andreas Kloeden to seal a third consecutive stage win for his team while Frank Schleck finished with a10-second advantage over Kloeden.

His brother Andy Schleck won Friday's stage, leaving Kazakh Astana rider Assan Bazayev in the lead.

But Schleck win Saturday's penultimate stage, just six seconds ahead of Kloeden.

Marco Marcato (Vancansoleil) was third overall, 1 minute and 32 second behind.

Frank Schleck took control of the Tour de Luxembourg after winning the third stage in Diekirch.

Schleck, whose brother Andy won stage two, delighted home fans when took victory in the mountainous 185 kilometres stage ahead of Astana's Andreas Kloden to take over from Assan Bazayev.

Kloden also trails Schleck in the general classification.

Team Saxo Bank took control of the stage with 10km to go, leaving overnight race leader Bazayev behind, with Schleck, Kloden and Marco Marcato establishing a gap.

But Schleck managed to pull away with 2km remaining to take the solo victory and the yellow jersey.

Andy Schleck of Saxo Bank scored a stage victory in the Tour de Luxembourg to delight the home fans while Astana's Assan Bazayev took over the leader's jersey.

The younger of Saxo's Schleck brothers took the sprint ahead of his teammate Matti Breschel and Aitor Galdos of Euskaltel-Euskadi. The three were part of a 15-rider break that formed about 12 kilometers before the finish. The break included Bazayev, who was sixth on the stage, at the same time as Schleck.

Bazayev was fifth overall at the Luxembourg tour last year.

Danilo Napolitano won the opening stage of the Tour de Luxembourg, out-sprinting Steven Caethoven and Tom Veelers.

Katusha rider Napolitano posted a time of three hours 48 minutes 29 seconds on the 157km stage that began in the city of Luxembourg before looping round to Mondorf-les-Bains in the far south of the land-locked nation.

Behind Agritubel's Caethoven was Dutchman Veelers of the Skil-Shimano team in third place, with Caethoven's team-mate Romain Feillu fourth and CSF Group-Navigare's Tiziano Dall'anotonia in fifth.

There was disappointment for the Astana team, however: though the Kazakh-funded team dominated Wednesday's prologue, none of its riders finished inside the top 20 on Thursday's stage.

Switzerland's Gregory Rast won the prologue of the 2009 Tour du Luxembourg after edging a tight sprint around Luxembourg's eponymous capital city.

Rast's win on the 2.7km circuit was a further boost to the Astana team, who earlier in the day were cleared to continue fielding riders despite the financial problems which have dogged the Kazakh-funded outfit.

Rast's time of three minutes 46.78 seconds put him ahead of Skil Shimano rider Jonathan Hivert, while Rast's team-mate Assan Bazayev was fourth behind Agritubel's Romain Feillu.

Rounding out the top six were Gustave Larsson (Team Saxo Bank) and Andreas Kloden (Astana).