After being steamrollered by Chris Froome (Sky) yesterday, the Katusha duo Daniel Moreno and Joaquím Rodriguez managed to stay with the group of favourites on Sunday’s stage which descended into an avalanche of attacks as soon as the flag dropped. At the end of the day Moreno finished 4th and Rodriguez came 5th.

"Today it was a hard stage too,” Moreno said. “At the beginning of the last climb I dropped because the group was keeping a really fast pace. Then, I managed to close the gap, keeping a regular pace. In the finale I managed to make a good sprint: unfortunately it was only for the third position."

Rodriguez agreed that the stage was indeed a tough challenge: "It was an incredibly fast stage: the group was full gas all day long, so we all made a huge effort. The race is still very long, there's still plenty of time before Paris, and today's crisis of Porte proves there can be many surprises in the general classification before the end. Everything can happen in this kind of big stage races: that's the beautiful of cycling."

On GC Rodriguez and Moreno lie 9th and 17th respectively, trailing Froome by 2’31” and 04’36”.