Knowing that he needed to gain time on Tejay van Garderen ahead of the final time trial, Alejandro Valverde went into today's stage of the Tour de France with a plan to attack. Using his excellent Movistar team to make the race explode on the Port de Bales, he accomplished his mission as he gained more than 3 minutes in his American rival.

A demanding more than two weeks raced and the longest stage of the 2014 Tour de France (237km) have brought the whole Movistar Team to the heart of the action in the first stage through the Pyrenees, with the Portet d'Aspet (Cat-2), Ares (Cat-3) and the Port de Balès (HC) before a long descent into Bagnères-de-Luchon, where Michael Rogers (TCS) was victorious after taking part of the day's breakaway.

The attempt, with 21 riders and almost thirteen minutes of advantage at the foot of the last climb, saw Spanish champion Ion Izagirre protect the Blues' interest and follow the opening attacks on the Balès. The Basque allrounder was only dropped as four riders resisted up-front: Rogers, José Serpa (LAM) and Europcar's Cyril Gautier and Thomas Voeckler.

Izagirre waited for the favourites to complete a splendid Movistar teamwork that was started on the final hard slopes: first with Visconti, then with an excellent and recovered Beñat Intxausti, the Blues tore the bunch apart and dropped two main contenders in Tejay Van Garderen (BMC), who lost 3'35" at the finish, and Romain Bardet (ALM), almost 2' behind Valverde.

A brief struggling by Valverde as Pinot imposed his tremendous pace in the final meters of the climb did not avoid him reaching the finish –after great work from Gadret and Izagirre – alongside Nibali (AST), Pinot (FDJ) and Péraud (ALM). Valverde stays in 2nd place, with 29" on Pinot, 1'31" to Péraud, 2'03" over Bardet and 4'48" ahead of Van Garderen, on the eve of the Queen stage of this year's race. Only 124km are on the programme on Wednesday, yet the route features the Portillon (Cat-1), the Peyresourde (Cat-1), Val Louron (Cat-1) and a summit finish in Saint-Lary (HC).

"We were the ones who did all the pace on the final climb to hurt some of our rivals - that was our plan already since this morning," Valverde said. "I think it was a good day for us, because we opened big gaps to threatening riders who wereclose in the overall standings.

"In the final meters of the Balès, I chose not to follow the pace Pinot was putting into my group, because I knew he had to reach the summit with a gap over the rest so as not to suffer on the descent. He set such a fast  rhythm that even Nibali got dropped, but as soon as we started descending, we reached him and kept the pace high with Gadret and Izagirre, who made a great work.

"We're keeping the same goal, which is the podium in Paris, and now it's all about tomorrow's stage, which is going to be super hard."

"It wasn't to be, we couldn't contest the stage win, yet we made part of that break, we stayed up-front long enough and the team was sensational on the final climb with Valverde, breaking the bunch into pieces," Izagirre said. "Some of our rivals for the overall podium lost time and that's the best reward for my work.

"The break contained riders like Rogers, whom we knew we had to be alert of as he was good in the Giro but my legs didn't respond well, I wasn't doing as good as I wanted to.

"Kiryienka set his classic strong pace in the beginning of the climb and when he overtook me after dropping back, I just couldn't follow him - I was struggling. After reaching the summit I was told that the group had really split, some leaders like Bardet or Van Garderen were losing time, and one kilometer after the top I stopped to help Valverde out in the run-in to the finish."