"On the third climb Rodriguez was dropped, and I thought Bardet was the guy to watch for the finish."

Those were the words of Astana's Jakob Fuglsang after stage twelve at the Tour de France. Fuglsang finished second on the final mountain stage of the Pyrenees on Thursday behind Spanish rider Joaquim Rodriguez on a day of extreme heat, extreme downpour and extreme difficulty.

Fuglsang followed teammate Lieuwe Westra into the first breakaway of the day, and quickly found himself alongside a group of nearly two dozen riders ahead of four categorized climbs, including the long, steep finish at Plateau de Beille. Westra attacked the breakaway on the second climb and reduced the peloton to just a handful of riders, and on the top of the third mountain at Port de Lers Fuglsang and his fellow escapees had more than six minutes advantage over the peloton.

A torrential mountain rainstorm followed on the long, flat road to the bottom of Plateau de Beille. Fuglsang marked his rivals and followed when Rodriguez and French rider Romain Bardet moved ahead of the breakaway to chase earlier escapees.

Rodriguez won on his home territory, and Fuglsang gained more than seven minutes to moved up from 18th to 14th in the overall classification.

"It was hard," Fuglsang added. "I was playing it a bit the moment he [Rodriguez] went away. I wanted [Romain] Bardet to close it, because I thought he was playing with us not wanting to pull, not wanting to do anything. In the end, he didn't have the legs, and when Purito gets a gap he's difficult to catch.

"We also started attacking early in the climb, and we still with 10km to go. It would be a long way to the top if we didn't get moving a little bit. If you're only attacking and counterattacking. I thought OK, let's ride a little bit, and normally the less hard parts should be more in my favor, but it didn't work out today.

"I'm happy that I had good legs today. Yesterday I had an off day. I'm happy I could be there today, but it's my fifth second place in a Tour stage, and I would like to change it for a victory. I'll have to try again later.

"Vincenzo is still the leader in the team, but I think it's obvious that we cannot only focus on that. We still have to go and chase some success in the breakaways."

Teammate Vincenzo Nibali also moved up in General Classification on Thursday from 11th to 9th and arrived at the finish together with race leader Chris Froome of Great Britain.