Race Report: Joaquim Rodriguez flew away from his breakaway companions on the final climb of Plateau de Beille after spending the whole day in the break. He took off from a group of Jakob Fuglsang and Romain Bardet and stormed up the second half of the climb to win by a comfortable margin. Behind; the rain seemed to dampen the ambition of Quintana who was unable to launch a sustained attack on Froome, who was expertly protected by Geraint Thomas and Richie Porte.RouteWe’re in the Hautes-Pyrenees and the Ariege today which means climbing, and plenty of it. The one bone thrown to the sprinters is the fact that the intermediate sprint comes after 20km and before any climbs which means it may prove to be quite an important day for the green jersey. After that it’s time for the mountain men to take over. We have four climbs, three ranked 1st category or Hors-Categories, the first is the Col de Portet-d’Aspet (4.3km at 9.7%) which is most famous for the tragic death of Fabio Casartelli 20 years ago, the Tour returns to pay their respects to the Olympic champion. After that we have the Col de la Core (14.1km at 5.7%) the Port de Lers (12.9km at 6%) and the finish on the impossibly difficult HC Plateau de Beille (15.8km at 7.9%). Unusually for a stage which has 4 long climbs on it there’s quite a lot of flat today which means it isn’t conducive to a long range attack...
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