2018 Tour de France Stage 6 Results & Recap
Stage 6 of the 2018 Tour de France is in the books. The final results and standings are below, followed by our recap of how the race unfolded.
Race Recap
Martin gets his groove back\nBy Clara Beard
Amid hundreds of fans waving those distinctive black and white Breton flags, Dan Martin (UAE Team Emirates) won stage 6 of the Tour de France at Mûr-de-Bretagne, closing a five year drought at the Grand Boucle after his first win in the Pyrennes in 2013. Martin held off Pierre Latour (AG2R La Mondiale) and Alejandro Valverde (Movistar Team) after attacking 1 kilometre from the uphill finish.
“It’s a great feeling to actually get a Tour de France stage win again,” Martin said after the stage. “I was second here last time. I was a bit nervous because of the head wind. The first time up the climb, I saw everyone was at the limit. I had no team-mate left. So I had to try. My legs were there all the time. I already wanted to have a go yesterday but it wasn’t as steep as today. I was looking forward to have a crack. My win today is definitely a confidence booster for the GC. The last time I was second here, I had lost a bit of time before. I’ll try to ride for GC as hard as I can this year. But this victory makes this Tour de France a successful one already.”
Greg Van Avermaet finished 12th on the day, retaining the yellow jersey for yet another day. Sky’s Geraint Thomas moves up to second place overall after taking intermediate bonus seconds and now is three seconds behind. Van Avermaet’s teammate, Tejay van Garderen (BMC) is now third at five seconds.
“I’m very happy with the performance of my team,” Van Avermaet said. “It was pretty important for me to keep a steady rhythm at the final climb, and thankfully Richie Porte did it on my behalf and on his as well. From then on, I tried to hang in the group of the favourites for as long as possible and maybe try to sprint to the finish line at the end… But it was impossible for me after keeping the tempo of the climbers for so long. I was expecting something like this from Dan Martin. After all, he is very good at choosing the right moment to make a strong attack. For sure I have thought about the possibility of wearing the yellow jersey in Roubaix, but there are a couple of stages before that one and every day something happens. Anyway, of course it would be nice to win that stage in yellow so close to the Belgian border.”
Laurent Pichon (Fortuneo-Samsic), Damien Gaudin and Fabien Grellier (Direct Energie), Anthony Turgis (Cofidis) and Dion Smith (Wanty-Groupe Gobert) were the riders who escaped just after the flag dropped marking the official start to the 181 kilometre rolling stage through Brittany.
With the gap allowed to reach almost eight minutes, Quick Step took advantage of the growing crosswinds and starting driving the peloton into the gutter after the first KOM at the Roc’h Trévézel. This move caused not only the gap to come down considerably to two minutes, but also splintering the peloton into three groups. Nairo Quintana, Vincenzo Nibali, Ilnur Zakarin, Jakob Fuglsang and Martin were among the GC riders forced to chase back into the front group.
Up ahead, Gaudin attacked after Pichon took the intermediate sprint in Plouguernével with about 40 kilometres to go. The breakaway came back together eventually, but the time was coming down fast by the time they reached the first passage of the finishing circuit in Mûr-de-Bretagne. With Team Sky and Quick Step grinding away at the front less than half the peloton was left. Martin attacked under the flamme rouge and held off counter moves from Latour and Valverde to take his elusive win.
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