Joaquin Rodriquez of Katusha has taken victory on stage twelve of the 102nd Tour De France.
A third and final day in the Pyrenees saw a 195km stage from Lannemezan to Plateau de Beille with another difficult uphill finish on a day of four categorised climbs.
With French Prime Minister Manuel Valls attending the stage in ASO Chief’s Christian Prudhomme's car, the stage got underway with 177 starters and saw Andrei Greipel, on his 33rd birthday, take the intermediate sprint after twenty kilometres at Saint Bertrand De Comminges, ahead of Degenkolb, Sagan – the points leader and Mark Cavendish.
With the sprint over with for the day, Louis Meintjes (MTN Qhubeka) came up to Lieuwe Westra (Astana) and Bryan Coquard (Europcar) to form a three man break which became twenty two when Jakob Fuglsang (Astana), Matthieu Ladagnous, Jérémy Roy (FDJ), Gorka Izagirre (Movistar), Michal Kwiatkowski (Etixx), Romain Bardet, Mickaël Chérel, Christophe Riblon (AG2R), Jan Barta (Bora), Romain Sicard (Europcar), Kristjian Durasek (Lampre), Dani Navarro (Cofidis), Sylvain Chavanel, Jérôme Coppel (IAM), Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha), Frédéric Brun, Anthony Delaplace (Bretagne-Séché), Georg Preidler (Giant) and Sep Vanmarcke (LottoNL-Jumbo) joined them.
After 36kms, they were 4.25 ahead and 6.10 clear with 150kms left and Alex Dowsett of Movistar, who has been struggling since a crash on stage two, off the back of the peloton.
Over the col du Portet d'Aspet after 57.5kms and it was Austrian Georg Preidler who took the five points on offer.
Dowsett decided he had suffered enough and became the first British rider to abandon the race after Zak Dempster of Bora Argon 18 had been forced out of the race with a ‘soft tissue infection at the perineum’
Riblon, Roy, Ladagnous, Coquard, Brun and Kwiatkowski were dropped by the front group with Brun and Kwiatkowski then making it back to form an eighteen man break.
Kristjian Durasek took the ten points on the 1395m Col de la Core climb which was 14.1kms long with an average gradient of 5.7% which came after 93kms.
The gap stood at 9.20 when Georg Preidler, Michal Kwiatkowski and Sep Vanmarcke dropped the rest of the break and went off on their own.
They had a lead of 1.59 to the seventeen chasers and 12.52 to the peloton with 62.4kms of the stage remaining on a day where it was raining at the finish line in Plateau de Beille.
Five kilometres later and the pace set by Kwiatkowski proved too much for Preidler but Meintjes, Romain Bardet and Jacob Fuglsang of Astana along with Sicard, Rodriquez and Gorka Izagirre were closing on the climb up to the 1517m Pont de Lars category one climb, which had a 6% average gradient.
With Dan Martin who was the stage eleven most combative rider, being dropped by the peloton along with Jean-Christophe Péraud, which was 10.30 behind Kwiatkowski & Vanmarcke who had gone over the Pont de Lars and were on the long descent, whilst it was now hailing at the finish line.
On wet roads but in sunshine, the world champion and Vanmarcke were taking it very cagily unlike Louis Meintjes who hit the deck.
The youngster made it back into the chasing group who were still chasing Kwiatkowski and Vanmarcke on the D8 road with 34 kilometres to go.
Going into the final twenty kilometres and Kwiatkowski and Vanmarke had a lead of 1.47 over the chasing group and 11.22 over the peloton as the rain got worse.
Onto the D522 at Aulos and the front two started on the Hors category 1780m Plateau de Beille climb which was conquered by Marco Pantini in 1998 and is close to the border with Andorra, with a lead of 1.52 over the group of chasers.
With 13.8kms to go, Kwiatkowski attacked and started to put some distance between himself and Sep Vanmarcke, whilst down the road, Team Sky continued to lead the peloton with Peter Kennaugh and Ian Stannard taking massive turns on the front.
The chasing group caught up with Vanmarcke and it was now Rodriquez, Fuglsang and Bardet who were chasing the Polish rider out front, who was 52 seconds clear and 9.04 ahead of the yellow jersey group.
Rodriquez decided with 8.2kms to try and bring back Kwiatkowski and with 7.7kms left, the Katusha rider caught up with the Pole and passed him as did Fuglsang some twelve seconds later.
An attack out of the peloton saw them reduce the advantage of Rodriquez to 7.20 but the Katusha rider was now a hundred seconds ahead of Fuglsang.
Further down the road, Froome, Quintana in the young riders jersey and Valverde all tried to attack each other to see who would crack and they soon discovered that no-one was.
Rodriquez was to have his day and he took his second stage win of this race in 5.40.14 with Fuglsang second 1.12 down and Bardet of AG2R third 1.49 back.
Chris Froome finished in tenth place, 6.47 down and although he lost a second or two to Valverde, the Team Sky rider continues in the lead of the race.