After much bad luck, Movistar finally got their elusive stage win today when Rui Costa emerged as the strongest from an excellent 26-rider breakaway. Behind, Alberto Contador (Saxo-Tinkoff) made repeated attacks on the final climb but was unable to put race leader Chris Froome (Sky) in any real difficulty. However, Laurens Ten Dam (Blanco), Jakob Fuglsang (Astana), Jean-Christophe Peraud (Ag2r) and Michal Kwiatkowski (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) all lost time and so a minor shake-up of the top 10 on GC was made.

 

Ever since Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) fell out of GC contention on Friday, his Movistar team has been desperately chasing a stage win and they have come close on both possible occasions. Jose Joaquin Rojas finished 4th in Lyon on Saturday while Nairo Quintana was 2nd one day later.

 

Today the team finally took that elusive win when Rui Costa was clearly the strongest in a break royale consisting of some of the most renowned breakaway specialists in the world. The Portuguese attacked on the day's final climb, the Col de Manse, and no one was even close to matching his speed.

 

Behind, Katusha had intentions of producing up a shake-up of the GC and their hard tempo whittled down the yellow jersey group to just Roman Kreuziger and Alberto Contador (Saxo Tinkoff), Chris Froome and Richie Porte (Sky), Alejandro Valverde and Nairo Quintana (Movistar), Joaquin Rodriguez (Katusha) and Bauke Mollema (Belkin). Contador attacked three times but was never able to challenge Froome and so that 8-man group finished together. However, Laurens Ten Dam, Jakob Fuglsang and Jean Christophe Peraud all lost a minute while Michal Kwiatkowski lost 1.39.

 

The battle for the stage win

Early in the stage, Adam Hansen (Lotto), Manuel Quinziato and Philippe Gilbert (BMC), Tony Gallopin, Andreas Klöden and Laurent Didier (Radioshack), Cyril Gautier and Thomas Voeckler (Europcar), Arnold Jeannesson (FDJ), Christophe Riblon and Blel Kadri (Ag2r), Nicolas Roche (Saxo-Tinkoff), Yury Trofimov (Katusha), Mikel Astarloza (Euskaltel), Costa, Jerome Coppel and Daniel Navarro (Cofidis), Manuele Mori (Lampre), Peter Velits (Omega Pharma-Quick Step), Ramunas Navardauskas (Garmin), Michael Albasini and Cameron Meyer (Orica-GreenEdge), Tom Dumoulin (Argos), Thomas De Gendt and Johnny Hoogerland (Vacansoleil) and Jean-Marc Marino (Sojasun) had gone clear, and when they hit the bottom of the Col de Manse with 21km to go, Kadri and Marino had a 15-second gap on their chasers. Quinziato sacrificed himself for teammate Gilbert and set a hard tempo on the lower slopes.

 

With 19km to go, Hansen attacked and Dumoulin and Quinziato both tried - in vain - to join the Australian. He quickly caught Marino who had been dropped by Kadri and drew the two Frenchmen back together to create a front trio.

 

The Lotto rider was, however, too strong and left his companions behind while Roche really set a hard tempo in the chase group. As a consequence, it exploded completely with numerous riders dropping off, Quinziato, De Gendt, Mori, Hoogerland, Navarduaskas and Albasini being some of the first riders to fall back.

 

Kadri and Marino were caught and the former quickly fell behind while Hansen fell back into the main group. Coppel was the next to attack and Velits, Costa and Roche went off in pursuit.

 

That was when Costa showed his strength as he quickly left his companions behind and bridged the gap to Coppel. The Frenchman had no chance to match his speed and suddenly the Portuguese found himself as the lone leader of the stage.

 

Roche had now dropped Velits and was in lone pursuit of Costa and Coppel but Jeannesson made a huge effort to join the Irishman. Behind only Gilbert, Trofimov, Klöden, Gallopin, Voeckler, Gautier, Dumoulin, Velits and Riblon were left of the original breakaway.

 

Coppel fell back to Roche and Jeannesson while Klöden and Riblon attacked to join that trio. Gautier made a dedicated try to also get across but at last he had to give up.

 

Roche suddenly exploded and fell back to the Gilbert group and so Costa was now chased by a strong quartet. However, he kept increasing his advantage and very quickly he had a gap of more than 30 seconds.

 

Astarloza, Didier and Meyer got back to the Gilbert group from which the attacks went thick and gast. Trofimov, Dumoulin and Voeckler were some of the riders to have a go but were never allowed any leeway.

 

At the top Costa had a 50-second gap as he started the famous and very technical descent. Riblon tried to make a small attack but never got clear and instead the 4 chasers cooperated perfectly. They were, however, unable to make up much time on Costa who soloed across the line 42 seconds ahead of his pursuers.

 

Riblon beat Jeannesson, Coppel and Klöden in the sprint for 2nd while Dumoulin and Astarloza had escaped to take 6th and 7th. A little further behind, Gilbert won the sprint from what was left of the biggest group to take 8th.

 

The battle of the favourites

Sky had led the peloton for most of the day but as they hit the Col de Manse, it was Tony Martin who set the tempo with teammate Kwiatkowski in his wheel. That saw riders start to drop off, their teammate Mark Cavendish being one of the first.

 

Moments later, Katusha suddenly went to the front and Alberto Losada put down the hammer with his teammates Daniel Moreno and Joaquin Rodriguez in his wheel. That move significantly reduced the size of the main bunch and when Moreno took over a little later, the number of remaining riders came down rapidly.

 

When he finished his work, only Rodriguez, Froome, Porte, Kreuziger, Contador, Mollema, Valverde and Quintana were left while Fuglsang, Ten Dam and Peraud chased a little further behind. Porte went to the front to set a hard tempo that would discourage any attacks.

 

However, Contador had a plan and the Spaniard accelerated off the front but Porte had no trouble bringing it back together. Porte and Kreuziger started to swap turns on the front until Contador made another acceleration and this time Porte had more trouble bringing it back together.

 

Behind more riders had bridged to the chasing trio as Robert Gesink, Andrew Talansky, Daniel Martin, Romain Bardet, Michael Rogers, Cadel Evans and Steve Morabito had all got across. Gesink did a huge work for Ten Dam before falling back and leaving it to his teammate to do the job himself.

 

Contador made a third acceleration and this time it was left to Froome to close it down as Porte fell off the pace. Valverde now settled into a domestique role as he went to the front to extend Quintana's advantage over his GC rivals.

 

Kreuziger was next to attack but Froome had no trouble responding and instead Valverde, Kreuziger and Porte- who had got back on - swapped turns for the remainder on the climb.

 

Contader attacked furiously on the descent but Froome was always in his wheel and the strung-out group remained together until Contador took a corner too fast and hit the ground. Froome went off the road as he had to avoid the Spaniard and suddenly the two riders were left behind.

 

Porte fell back to help his captain but Valverde continued to drive the pace in the front group so as to put more time into Quintana's rivals. However, Porte managed to bring the 8 riders back together and Contador clearly showed his dissatisfaction with Quintana who had not slowed down to wait for the fallen Spaniard.

 

Rodriguez made a long sprint to maximize his time gains but Quintana came around him to take 27th on the stage. Talansky led the Ten Dam group across the line 1 minute later while Sylvain Chavanel led his teammate Kwiatkowski into the finish 39 seconds further adrift.

 

The result means that Quintana moves from 6th to 5th as Ten Dam drops one spot. Rodriguez is now 7th as he gets past Fuglsang while Martin moves into the top 10, replacing Kwiatkowski. Froome still enjoys a 4.14 lead over 2nd-placed Mollema and he is set to extend that gap in tomorrow's very hilly time trial.

 

Starting at 10.30, you can follow the entire time trial on CyclingQuotes.com/live.

 

A frantic start

The 168km stage was always expected to be one for a breakaway and so the stage started off at a frantic pace. From the gun a big 22-rider group with Peter Sagan, Jens Voigt, Didier, Hansen, Daniele Bennati, Roche, Pavel Brutt, Kadri, Riblon, Costa, Jose Joaquin Rojas, Mori, Lars Boom, Velits, Navardauskas, John Degenkolb, Dumoulin, De Gendt, Alexis Vuillermoz and David Veilleux went clear and for a long time that group fought hard to stay clear of the chasing peloton.

 

FDJ had missed the move and so set a hard pace in the peloton. As the peloton got close to the front group, many riders saw the opportunity to bridge the gap while riders also started to fall off as they had now started to climb the category 3 Cote de la Montagne de Bluye. Voeckler, Juan Jose Oroz, Ion Izagirre, Eduard Vorganov, Sylvain Chavanel, Jan Bakelants, Klöden, Morabito, Jeannesson, Marino, Ryder Hesjeldal, Jesus Hernandez, Juan-Antonio Flecha and Tony Gallopin were just some of the riders to get across.

 

Valverde and Martin attack

Hesjedal took maximum points on the climb as Valverde and Daniel Martin had now also bridged the gap. As the latter was only 11th on GC, Sky started to chase hard and that forced Klöden and Hansen to go on the offensive.

 

The duo left their companions behind while Sky had brought back the chase group. As they slowed down, another 23-rider group containing most of the same riders went clear while some riders missed the move.

 

The peloton slows down

The peloton now slowed down while the 23 chasers caught the front duo. Jeannesson managed to bridge the gap, thus forming a 26-rider lead group that quickly built up a gap of more than 7 minutes.

 

Behind, the peloton now took it easy as Ian Stannard and Geraint Thomas set a modest pace. Hoogerland took maximum points on the day's second climb while the main group momentarily had to slow down at a railroad crossing, thus allowing the gap to pass the 8-minute mark.

 

De Gendt wins the sprint

As the cooperation in the front group was good, the gap constantly grew and as they passed the intermediate sprint with 45km to go, they were 10.22 ahead of the main group. De Gendt made a small acceleration to take maximum points while no other rider had any interest in that sprint.

 

With 30km to go, Kadri attacked and he was joined by Marino. The duo built up a gap of 25 seconds but the chase behind got more organized a little later. As they started the Col de Manse, they were only 15 seconds ahead and from then on, it developed into a very dramatic finale.

 

Result:

1. Rui Costa 3.52.45

2. Christophe Riblon +0.42

3. Arnold Jeannesson

4. Jerome Coppel

5. Andreas Klöden

6. Tom Dumoulin +1.00

7. Mikel Astarloza +1.01

8. Philippe Gilbert +1.04

9. Cameron Meyer

10. Ramunas Navarduaskas

 

General classification:

1. Chris Froome 65.15.36

2. Bauke Mollema +4.14

3. Alberto Contador +4.25

4. Roman Kreuziger +4.28

5. Nairo Quintana +5.47

6. Laurens Ten Dam +5.54

7. Joaquin Rodriguez +7.11

8. Jakob Fuglsang +7.22

9. Jean-Christophe Peraud +8.47

10. Daniel Martin +9.28

 

Points classification:

1. Peter Sagan 377

2. Mark Cavendish 278

3. Andre Greipel 223

4. Marcel Kittel 177

5. Alexander Kristoff 157

 

Mountains classification:

1. Chris Froome 83

2. Nairo Quintana 66

3. Mikel Nieve 53

4. Pierre Rolland 51

5. Roman Kreuziger 28

 

Youth classification:

1. Nairo Quintana 65.21.23

2. Michal Kwiatkowski +3.50

3. Andrew Talansky +7.45

4. Romain Bardet +19.03

5. Arthur Vichot +53.20

 

Teams classification:

1. Radioshack 195.00.32

2. Team Saxo-Tinkoff  +3.11

3. Ag2r +4.04

4. Movistar +14.00

5. Belkin +19.08