Cannondale-Garmin believed the breakaway would likely stay away to contest the stage 14 win at the Tour de France on Saturday. With this notion in mind, the team was fully focused on getting Andrew Talansky and Ryder Hesjedal up the road. In the fast and furious first hour of the 178km stage, Talansky and Hesjedal delivered on the desired outcome. They had both made the break.

The story of the stage does not end there. Sports director Robbie Hunter, in his own words, explains below.

"The idea was to get into the breakaway. We were focused on Andrew and Ryder. We knew it was going to be a hard start – and it proved exactly that. A small group rode away and from that Ryder and Andrew moved away in a group of 20-odd guys," he said.

"As the 20-man move was coming back, that’s when Andrew got away with five guys from the original move.

"At the bottom of the descent, a few more guys jumped across to Andrew and the others out front. The make-up of that group became the break of the day. Kristijan had ridden across to that, so we were in a really good situation. We had Andrew for the final, and Kristijan would have helped him out all day.

"We had some bad luck for Andrew with a puncture and unfortunately, when the group was only on 40 seconds behind, it was race over for Andrew. He worked hard to get into the move, and he was now back in the bunch. At the end of the day, it’s just part of racing.

"We had Kristijan out front to do his own ride. He rode a fantastic race.

"With the final the way it was, it always going to be difficult for a guy like Kristijan to beat Pinot, Bardet and the likes, so we came up with a small plan to try to get him away before the final climb. It worked perfectly. He rode away with another guy from QuickStep. At one point they had 30 seconds, which looked promising.

"But Francais des Jeux had one guy extra there, and they worked really hard to close the gap before the bottom of the final climb. They caught Kristijan half-way up the climb.

"Nonetheless, Kritijan rode a fantastic race today. He gave everything. We’re really happy with the way things turned out. He rode with everything he had, and it turned out there was someone stronger on the day.

"There are a lot of opportunities left and we are going to keep fighting to take them."