Andrew Talansky (Cannondale-Garmin) got close to a maiden Tour de France stage win when he finished second in stage 17.

"Once I got in that breakaway I thought I had a really good chance," he told Cyclingnews. "I was suffering a little bit early on, but I looked at the faces of the other guys, and I know the way I'm feeling in the third week, the way I've been climbing I was pretty confident I was the best climber in the group. That proved to be true by the end. Geschke just had a bit too much time coming into the final climb.

"I rode the race as smart as I could, and rode with my heart and not my head in the end. I ended up being second, but I did everything I could.

"Geschke is a pretty good descender, too, and the gap stayed pretty much the same between the top and the bottom. My only hope was that he was going to blow up in the steeper last two kilometers. He's a great bike rider, a class rider, and he knows how to meter his effort, obviously. I think I closed 50 seconds to a minute at the end, but it wasn't enough. I ran out of road.

"Whenever you come in second - you're out there racing for the win, in a break that goes to the end - it's disappointing not to get it. But we had myself and Ryder [Hesjedal] up there, Dan Martin is starting to feel better. I historically have come on strong in the third week of Grand Tours, and this is the start of that, and we will be able to create other opportunities.

"The GC wasn't even a thought today. We were racing 100 per cent for a stage win, the time gain came as a by-product of that. Moving up is always nice, and being closer to the top 10 I'll definitely be racing with that in mind, but it's not going to change the fact that a stage win is the priority."