Alexis Vuillermoz upsets favourites to win at Mûr-de-Bretagne

Third on the Mur de Huy last Monday, Vuillermoz underlined his fine form with a blistering final climb up the 'Alpe d'Huez of Brittany' to leave the race favourites in his wake and secure the biggest win of his career.

Twenty-seven-year-old Vuillermoz put in a series of stinging attacks on the deciding climb before finally pulling ahead of a select group containing the yellow jersey Chris Froome (Team Sky) with six-hundred metres remaining.

Ireland's Dan Martin zipped off in pursuit but the Cannodale-Garmin rider left it too late. Banging his handlebars in frustration, Martin crossed the line five seconds behind ecstatic winner Vuillermoz.

“My third place on the Mur de Huy was obviously amazing so today I wanted to do something special and it was the sort of climb that really suits me,” said Vuillermoz, a team-mate of last year’s runner-up Jean-Christophe Peraud.

“I attacked three times and finally worked. I knew there was someone behind me but I just kept my head down and rode on to the finish.”

Spanish national champion Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) led a chasing group over the line a further five seconds behind Martin after outsprinting Slovakia's Peter Sagan (Tinkoff-Saxo).

After missing out on the four bonus seconds for third place, Sagan stays 11 seconds down on Froome in the overall standings with American Tejay Van Garderen (BMC) two seconds further back in third.

Fourth place for the consistent Sagan was enough to see the race’s leading young rider prise the green jersey from the shapely shoulders of Andre Greipel (Lotto-Soudal). He now leads the German by three points, with Britain's Mark Cavendish (Etixx-QuickStep) a further 51 points in arrears.

Greipel, Cavendish and the other pure sprinters inevitably struggled with the double digit gradients of the Mûr-de-Bretagne, which came at the conclusion of the 181.5km stage from Rennes.

Both Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo) and Nairo Quintana (Movistar) finished in the chasing group alongside race leader Froome - but defending champion Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) conceded 10 seconds to his rivals after losing touch on the steep early ramp of the final climb.

Contador trails Froome by 36 seconds in the overall standings, Nibali drops out of the top ten to 1:48 seconds in arrears while Colombian Quintana lies another eight seconds back.

Third overall last year, France’s Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) finished another five seconds back while compatriot Romain Bardet came home 31 seconds down on his Ag2R-La Mondiale team-mate Vuillermoz.

Eritrea’s Daniel Teklehaimanot (MTN-Qhubeka) retained the polka dot jersey, which he is now guaranteed to wear until the race hits the Pyrenees after Monday’s rest day. Before that, the small matter of Sunday’s 28km team time trial...

A stage through the cycling heartland of Brittany – birth place of the great Bernard Hinault – was always going to attract fans in their droves – and the locals were entertained with an attack from Pro Continental team Bretagne-Séché Environnement from the gun.

It came to nothing, but the local team did get one man – Pierre-Luc Perichon – in the main break of the day alongside Bartosz Hutarski (Bora-Argon 18), Sylvain Chavanel (IAM Cycling) and Romain Sicard (Europcar), while another Bretagne rider, Perrig Quemeneur, wore the red bib as the most attacking rider from the previous stage.

Fans were out in their droves on the Col du Mont Bel Air, the only categorised climb of the day, over which Perichon kept to the script by cresting in pole position. But after the subsequent intermediate sprint at Gare de Moncontour there was a reshuffling of the pack as the peloton closed in.

Greipel had protected his lead in the green jersey competition by mopping up maximum points for fifth place at the intermediate sprint – and the German found himself in a group of around 20 riders who opened up a small gap over the peloton.

Also present were the likes of Sagan, Cavendish and John Degenkolb (Giant-Alpecin), as well as world champion Michal Kwiatkowski (Etixx-QuickStep). The early four-man break was swallowed up and when Frenchman Pierre Rolland (Europcar) decided to up the tempo, Poland’s Michal Golas (Etixx-QuickStep) countered – taking compatriot Hutarski and Denmark’s Lars Bak (Lotto-Soudal) with him.

The peloton soon caught the chasing group but the new trio of leaders opened up a gap of a minute. With an average age of around 33 the leaders – two Poles and a Dane – defied the peloton until the final 8km.

Much of the pace-setting ahead of the final climb had been done by the Cannondale-Garmin team of Dan Martin, who clearly sniffed out an opportunity for their Irish climber. When the BMC team of Tejay Van Garderen and Sky’s Chris Froome came to the front things got very feisty.

Froome was led onto the final climb by Geraint Thomas and Leopold Konig, but it was the Giant-Alpecin team of local rider Warren Barguil who set the tempo on the steepest slopes of the ramped ascent.

Giant’s Simon Geshke edged clear with Vuillermoz and Adam Yates (Orica-GreenEdge) while Froome was marked by Barguil and stage three winner Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha)

While it was Vuillermoz and Martin who would animate the final kilometre, Froome’s impressive riding put pressure on his main rivals resulting in Nibali losing 10 seconds to the Briton, Quintana and Contador. The Italian dropped out of the top ten and is now 1:48 down on Froome ahead of Sunday’s team time trial.

Froome was mighty impressive in underlining his credentials as the true ‘patron’ of the peloton, but it was Vuillermoz who eclipsed both his team-mates Peraud and Bardet, not to mention the Big Four. His win gave the host nation their first in the Tour – matching absent team-mate Blel Kadri, whose own win in stage eight last year broke the deadlock for France.

Ten seconds may not seem like a lot of time but, psychologically, it will equate to a mountain for Nibali to climb before the real mountains even arrive. Should Astana falter in the team time trial on Sunday, the defending champion could find himself well over two minutes back ahead of the Pyrenees.

Interestingly, the best placed Astana rider on Saturday after Nibali was Estonia's Tanel Kangert in 52nd place. The 'Shark from the Strait' will be hoping his team-mates were merely keeping themselves fresh for Sunday's challenge...

It’s that 28km team time trial – a rolling affair from Vannes to Plumelec which concludes on the punchy Col de Cadoudal which could prove the final nail in the coffin for many GC pretenders. Favourites BMC could well see their man Van Garderen into yellow.

Eritrea's Daniel Teklehaimanot (MTN-Qhubeka) is proving to be one of the most popular polka dot jerseys in recent memory...