Mende produced fireworks again in the Tour de France and brought another interesting gain for the Movistar Team riders, which saw its GC leader Nairo Quintana jumping into 2nd overall after the 178.5km stage fourteen from Rodez to the top of La Croix-Neuve (Cat-2).

The Movistar squad put one of its riders, Jonathan Castroviejo, into a 20-man break which ended up fighting for the stage win, with Steve Cummings (MTN) making a gap to Pinot (FDJ) and Bardet (ALM) over the top to claim the victory in the final sprint, with Castroviejo in 9th place.

The escape's gap over the main field, always around 6', eventually almost 4' to the leading favourites, helped the squad directed by Arrieta and Garcia Acosta to ride calmly and stay together behind and increase their lead in the teams' classification, now almost 14' over Sky. Yet, the biggest strike from the Blues would come from behind on the decisive ascent, when Quintana chose to go ahead halfway through its slopes.

Despite Froome (SKY) quickly reacting to successive moves from him, the Colombian's efforts quickly dropped back Tejay van Garderen (BMC), finishing 39" behind Quintana and losing his second place in the GC, Quintana now 3'10" behind Froome, the American at 3'32". After them, Valverde, who initially tried to follow Quintana and Froome, later went on his own rhythm, chased down Contador (TCS) and attacked him to finish barely 4" behind the duo, sitting now 4'02" behind Froome in the overall standings and just 30" away from Van Garderen.

Two stages are still remaining before the rest day, the first one, the 15th in the 'Grande Boucle, set to connect Mende with Valence across 183km, with two small ascents in the opening part plus L'Escrinet (Cat-2) crested just under 60k before the finish.

"I'm really happy with having climbed onto second," Quintana said. "We knew that patience would bring this place to us, but our real goal, the one we're focused on, is taking place number one. We have worked hard with the team through all these days, we found a chance to gain time today and we're staying confident and determined to try some attacks when the big mountains are back, maybe still being able to go after that yellow dream.

"We didn't have this stage and climb marked down for an attack, but I felt strong today and we thought that, after the fast pace in the last few days, wear and tear would be more evident. That's why we wanted to try, we saw we can keep attacking and fighting for our goal.

"I feel better. Today I've wanted to see how the rivals were and I've realized that as a team we can continue fighting for our yellow dream. It's encouraging because this short climb suited me much less than those of the Alps who are longer and more demanding.

"We've done some damage today. Contador and Van Garderen have lost a bit but they're still there. We can take on Froome in the Alps. Our goal remains the first position on GC. If Valverde can be on the podium with me in Paris, it'll be even better.

"I was really amazed to see so many Colombians again today at the finish; they must be really excited about this, as much as I am to see them, and this brings passion and huge support to me in order to keep pushing."

“It was a good day for us," Valverde said. "We couldn't gain time on the leader since, as everyone saw, Froome is super strong, he's able to set a huge pace and it's really difficult to drop him, but still, we did a really good stage. Shouldn't we be able to beat him or Sky, it will be because they were stronger than us, but we'll keep showing courage and willingness to try. Though winning the Tour remains difficult at this point, we must keep working. There are still all Alps left and we've got these two days, plus the rest day, to keep recovering.

"I'm feeling really great at the moment - the legs continue to roll well at the moment and I hope them to continue this way in the last week. I was doing my work on the climb; I didn't want to stay between Nairo and the other favourites, taking them onto Nairo's wheel would have been really bad, so I waited, then kept my own pace not to lose much time, and with that same rhythm, I chased down Alberto and still had energy to drop him. When I reached him, Contador asked me for some turns and I told him I couldn't take them, because Nairo was ahead. This is racing: he's doing his job, mine is to take care of Nairo, and he was the one who had to push.

“I worked very hard today, things went well, Castroviejo did a very good job for us as well. We saw Froome is still very strong. I was close to the podium, Castroviejo as well and now we’ll see what happens in the Alps.

“I think that we’re a pretty good duo we definitely have a good team and we work well together. I was attacking and Nairo was attacking too. I think if we work together it’s a very good thing to have two leaders in the team.

"There's a beautiful battle for the GC podium ahead, with plenty of mountains still to come. We took some gains today, but we might lose elsewhere. There's a long way home yet and my main goal till Paris is helping Nairo out for the victory. If I get into the podium, that'd really be fantastic, but that's a distant dream at the moment."