Australian journeyman cyclist Jonathan Cantwell couldn't believe his luck when he got a ride in the Tour de France this year - and now he's proving he deserves it.

The 30 year-old Queenslander claimed a top 10 finish - sixth, to be precise - despite crashing during the 214.5km fourth stage from Abbevile to Rouen.

With the two biggest Australian names, Cadel Evans and Matt Goss, making no waves, Cantwell's moment of minor glory was applauded freely by all those familiar with his long struggle to get to this level.

He is the least-known of the record 12 Australians contesting the 99th Tour, and late last year he didn't even have a team to ride for. But a string of solid performances at home, especially at the Tour Down Under, and abroad convinced the big Danish outfit Saxo Bank to give him a chance.

Former Tour champion Bjarne Riis, who runs Saxo Bank, was impressed with Cantwell’s toughness as well as his talent and assigned him the important task of leading out Argentine sprinter J. J. Haedo in the early flat stages.

Haedo has made little impact but Cantwell looks at home.

He has always been a good rider since he started racing at 15 - precisely half his lifetime ago - but looked to have sunk from sight when the ambitious Australian team that was known first as Fly V and then Pegasus failed to score a ProTour licence.

Pegasus was trying to become the first Australian team to make it into the Tour, which Orica-GreenEDGE has now done, and Cantwell was one of their best prospects - but that's all history now.

Even when he started with Saxo Bank, bad luck followed him. A major crash in April left him with four broken ribs and a punctured lung, putting him out of the biggest one-day race in Europe, Paris Roubaix, the following weekend.

Despite all that, here he is living the dream.

"It's absolutely unbelievable," he said, revealing that when he rode up the ramp for the start of the prologue time trial last Saturday his heart rate went through the roof because he was so excited.

"The first thing people always ask when you tell them you're a professional cyclist is have you done the Tour de France," he said.

"When you tell them no, it's like, well, you're not really a cyclist because that's all they know.

"If anyone had asked me two months ago, I'd have laughed because it would have seemed impossible. But it just shows never give up."

Evans had an uneventful day, finishing 27th in the leading pack and holding his sixth place in the general classification, with Swiss Fabian Cancellara still in the leader's yellow jersey.

Orica-GreenEDGE's Goss again failed to claim the new team's first stage, finishing fourth behind German powerhouse Andre Griepel of Lotto after British gun Mark Cavendish was part of a big crash in the last three kilometres.

The mood at the GreenEDGE bus was noticeably subdued but Goss seemed reasonably up-beat. He pointed out that he had four second placings in quick succession at the recent Tour of Turkey and another in the Italian Giro before finally cracking it for a win.

"Consistency pays off. Chin up. We can't win every day. I'm sure it will come," he said.

The good news is that Goss has benefited from Cavendish's crash and moved up to second in the hunt for the green jersey. He has 92 points, well behind leader Peter Sagan's 147.

Ron Reed in Rouen, France for Olympics.com.au