Tour de France: Fraile wins in Mende

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Omar Fraile (Astana) flew to victory on the Mende airstrip on stage 14 of the Tour de France, surviving from a large breakaway. The Spaniard beat out polka dot jersey wearer Julian Alaphilippe (Quick-Step Floors) and Jasper Stuyven (Trek-Segafredo) by six seconds in order to take his third victory of the season, the biggest of his career.

In a day of two races, the breakaway contested the finish 18 minutes ahead of the peloton. Fraile's compatriot Gorka Izagirre (Bahrain-Merida) kicked off the attacking festivities 59km out, taking with him Stuyven and Tom-Jelte Slagter (Dimension Data). The Trek-Segafredo man soon went it alone, his fantastic effort coming to naught on the final climb.

There, Fraile piggybacked a Thomas De Gendt (Lotto-Soudal) attack to launch his own. Catching Stuyven towards the top of the 'Montée Laurent Jalabert', he powered away to win solo despite the best efforts of Alaphilippe, who flew up the latter part of the climb - perhaps leaving his effort a touch too late.

"It's an amazing day," said Fraile after the finish. "I've been dreaming about this victory. In the end we picked up this phenomenal win and it's absolutely amazing. It's easily the best day of my career so far."

"We had a headwind [on the climb] and it was really tricky, but I just tried to climb it at the best rate I could, and in the end I did have the legs. I knew the climb today very well indeed."

Primož Roglič (LottoNL-Jumbo) led the GC men in, finishing 18:01 behind Fraile. The Slovenian had started the attacking on the final climb and wasn't caught despite the efforts of those behind. Race leader Geraint Thomas (Team Sky) was next in, 8 seconds later. He couldn't be separated from teammate Chris Froome and third-placed man Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb), with the two Sky men being the only riders able to follow the Dutchman's attack 2km from the line.

Nairo Quintana (Movistar) trailed ten seconds behind, while Romain Bardet (AG2R La Mondiale) lost a further four seconds. Mikel Landa, who looked to have established himself as Movistar team leader on the Alpe d'Huez, came in with his teammate Alejandro Valverde, losing 37 seconds to Roglič.

The top eight positions on GC remain unchanged after the stage, while Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Julian Alaphilippe (Quick Step Floors) only bolstered their respective mountain and point classification leads after making the break of the day.

How it happened

Another transitional stage between the Alps and Pyrenees, this one came with a sting in the tail in the form of the uphill finish at the airstrip in Mende. After a largely flat start, the hills reared up midway through as the peloton headed towards the Massif Central.

First up, there was the Côte du Grand Châtaignier (1km at 7.4 per cent) at 81km, 9km before the intermediate sprint at Bessèges. The real climbing started with the second category Col de la Croix de Berthel (9.1km at 5.3 per cent), coming 129km into the 188km stage. A third category climb - the Col du Pont sans Eau (3.3km at 6.3 per cent) followed at 142km before an uncategorised lump and the valley before the finale.

The Côte de la Croix Neuve, a road on Mont Mimat overlooking Mende, provided the final climb of the day before 1.5km of flat road to the airstrip - the 3km climb with an average of 10.2 per cent is also known as the Montée Laurent Jalabert, after the man who won there on its first inclusion in the Tour de France back in 1995.

Since then, Marcos Serrano, Joaquim Rodríguez and Steve Cummings have triumphed there - in 2005, 2010 and 2015 respectively. The climb has also been used in Paris-Nice and Tour du Gévaudan, with Alberto Contador, Davide Rebellin and Alexis Vuillermoz among those to have triumphed there.

One of the few opportunities for puncheurs to show themselves at the 2018 Tour, the stage would be a fierce fight to get on that exclusive list of winners. Thomas De Gendt (Lotto-Soudal), obviously not satisfied with being in the break yesterday, went from the gun to begin his 17th WorldTour breakaway of the season - eight more than any other rider.

The fast start provoked echelons and splits in the peloton early on with Romain Bardet (AG2R La Mondiale), Alejandro Valverde and Mikel Landa (both Movistar) among those caught out. Within the first 20km an easing of the pace led to a regrouping and the escape of a sizeable breakaway group.

Big break

Out front, two groups merged to make a 31-rider breakaway consisting of De Gendt, Peter Sagan and Maciej Bodnar (both Bora-Hansgrohe); Greg Van Avermaet, Damiano Caruso and Stefan Küng (all BMC); Lilian Calmejane, Thomas Boudat, Damien Gaudin, Jérôme Cousin and Sylvain Chavanel (all Direct Énergie); Gorka Izagirre and Kristijan Koren (Bahrain-Merida); Julian Alaphilippe and Philippe Gilbert (both Quick Step Floors); Anthony Turgis, Anthony Perez, Christophe Laporte and Nicolas Edet (all Cofidis); Jasper Stuyven and Michael Gogl (both Trek-Segafredo); Tom-Jelte Slagter and Julien Vermote (both Dimension Data); Pierre Rolland and Daniel Martínez (both Education First-Drapac); Michael Hepburn and Daryl Impey (both Mitchelton-Scott); Thomas Degand (Wanty-Groupe Gobert), Andrey Amador (Movistar), Simon Geschke (Team Sunweb), and Omar Fraile (Astana).

With the break's best-placed man on GC being Caruso, who lay 39:18 down, a breakaway stage win looked likely. Increasingly so, as the Sky train leading the peloton was not flying along, allowing the gap to increase gradually to the point where it became clear there would be two races today.

With both the green jersey Sagan and polka dot jersey Alaphilippe in the break, it was no surprise to see the world champion lead the way over the intermediate sprint, while the Frenchman added three points to his king of the mountains total over the first three climbs of the day.

Izagirre starts the attacking

Izagirre signalled his intentions by attacking over the top of the Croix de Berthel, 59km from the finish. After the loss of Bahrain-Merida team leader Vincenzo Nibali on the Alpe d'Huez, a Tour-saving stage win or polka dot jersey bid seemed to be on his mind.

The Spanish champion was joined on the descent by Stuyven and Slagter, with the trio taking a minute on the remainder of the break as they reached the final 50km. The group didn't last long together though, attacking each other on the unclassified climb with 35km to go.

Meanwhile, further behind De Gendt and Calmejane were on the offensive, splitting the chase group for good. The duo soon joined Izagirre and Slagter, while at the 20km to go mark Stuyven ploughed a lone furrow 1:10 up the road.

Almost 20 minutes (over 10km on the road) further back, the peloton were still led by Team Sky, just waiting to hit the day's final climb to the finish. Stuyven's advantage as he hit 5km to go was a solid 1:40 over the disorganised chasing group.

The final climb

As Stuyven hit the climb in the small ring, looking to measure his effort, De Gendt attacked from the chase group, bringing Fraile with him. The Spaniard soon went it alone on the steepest section of the climb, gradually eating into the Belgian's lead.

Stuyven's heroic effort came to an end 2km from the finish as Fraile passed with 500 metres of the climb to go. Further back,in a polka dot whir, Alaphilippe had fired away from the chase group and was eating up the gap to the new leader.

Over the top, Fraile survived out front, while Alaphilippe and Stuyven chased behind. With a 1.5km run slightly downhill to the finish, it was no trouble for the Astana man to stay away though. He had time to celebrate before taking the win ahead of the chasing duo.

The peloton makes it, eventually

AG2R La Mondiale and Sky led the way at the foot of the Croix Neuve, while bad luck struck Dan Martin (UAE Team Emirates) as he punctured just before the start of the climb. Roglič was the first of the GC men to strike out, attacking with 3km to go.

Egan Bernal (Team Sky) led a select GC group of Thomas, Froome, Quintana, Bardet and Steven Kruijswijk (LottoNL-Jumbo) a handful of seconds further back, while Landa struggled to keep pace. Dumoulin initially looked to be dropping, but paced himself back, attacking with 2km to go as Bernal pulled off the front.

Only Froome and Thomas could follow, with the inseparable trio cresting the climb together behind Roglič. The remainder of the GC top 10 trailed in over the next 38 seconds - all except for Dan Martin, who would drop one place, losing 1:51 to Roglič.

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