Dan Martin made no secret of his ambitions up the Mûr-de-Bretagne. The punchy uphill finish on the eighth stage of the Tour de France suited the Irishman. Cannondale-Garmin put the team on the front in the final hour of the race in support of Martin. He repaid his team’s efforts with a brilliant jump in the final kilometre. Boxed in and unable to launch the first acceleration, Martin was the second to attack and charge up toward the finish. He chased valiantly and crossed the line in second place, five seconds behind the stage winner.

“I knew that it was a good moment when Vuillermoz went,” said Martin. “That’s where I had planned to go as well. I really had the legs today, but I couldn’t get out.”

“I was waiting, waiting, waiting for the group to move left, so I could make my move,” Martin added. “I was stuck on the right with the wind coming from the left. As soon as they moved left, I went.”

“When you have the legs but lack the position to get out, it’s a bit of a disappointment,” Martin admitted. “The team rode so well today. I’m so thankful to them.”

The early break escaped in the opening kilometres and built up a four minute advantage in the first hour of the race. The peloton reacted to the size of the gap and quickly brought it under the three-minute mark.

The intermediate sprint saw a flurry of action and a reshuffling at the front of the race. The pace heading into the sprint saw gaps open in the peloton, and eventually a new group of three went up the road. Forty kilometres from the finish, the three leaders had one minute over the chasers. Cannondale-Garmin came to the front to control the breakaway.

Eight kilometers from the finish it was game over for the breakaway, and game on for the stage hunters and overall contenders. The pace lifted in the run-in to the short but steep uphill finish, and the attacks began on the lower slopes.

Vuillermoz launched just beyond the flamme rouge. Martin jumped the moment he found space.

“It was big chainring climb,” he noted. “It’s a hard climb, but it’s a lot harder coming from the other direction. The team was so strong today. Everyone rode great and I would have loved to pay them back with the win. Now we look ahead.”

Andrew Talansky remains in 19th overall heading into team time trial on Sunday.

“It’s going to be really hard to get any of that time back,” Martin told Cyclingnews regarding his own GC ambitions. “I think the whole GC thing is overrated, I just really want to win a stage of this race to be honest and if the GC happens after that with me trying to race my bike hard it happens but I don’t really want to pigeonhole myself. Andrew’s pretty well placed on the GC but for me it’s definitely the aim to try and win a stage.”