France's Pierre Rolland (EUC) managed to stay with the yellow jersey group in the climb to Plateau de Beille and said he was satisfied with his performance in the Pyrenees.

"We were seven or eight in the yellow jersey group and I had the luck to be able to hang there as much as possible," he said. "To be honest, the headwind helped me a bit in the end because the successive attacks by Valverde, Nibali, condor and Quintana hurt me a lot personally. We had a rider at the front with Romain Sicard and me, I'm satisfied with my Pyrenees as a whole. With the riders with whom I rode today I can't see myself doing any better than I did today."