Matthews wins Tour de France Stage 10 after long breakaway

Tinkoff’s Sagan – victor of stage two and current wearer of the green jersey – formed part of a late breakaway with team-mate Maciej Bodnar and Team Sky duo Froome and Geraint Thomas, with the chasing pack leaving it too late to make their move.

It means Froome now leads fellow Briton Adam Yates by 28sec with Dan Martin of Ireland third at 31sec.

“At the top of the climb [Port d’Envalira], with Sagan and [Vincenzo] Nibali, I wasn’t sure of what was going to happen but I heard on the radio that Luke Durbridge and Daryl Impey were coming across and it made me believe that I could win the stage”. Insane winds! crazy winds!

That still leaves around 10km of climbing, meaning we could still see the same kind of battle between the overall contenders as happened on the race’s last visit in 2013, when Chris Froome responded to an attack from Nairo Qintana and later rode away from the Colombian to move more than 4 minutes clear on his way to winning the 100th edition.

“Apparently there are really just gale force winds and it just wouldn’t be safe for the riders so thank you to the organisers for making the decision”.

The second stage of the Tour of Poland, another International Cycling Union (UCI) WorldTour race, saw Colombia’s Fernando Gaviria sprint to victory at the end of a 128km course from Tarnowskie Góry to Katowice. “It just happens. With this wind it was risky every moment in the stage”. “I want to take every opportunity I can and to find myself in yellow by doing that is just an awesome experience”.

“(We want) more stages, we have a really strong team to try to go for more stage wins”. “I led for Bodnar, I wanted him to win, but then Chris started sprinting and I had to go for the win”. I was close to giving in at this race after I had two bad crashes two and one years ago. But in terms of psychologically intimidating his rivals before the Tour’s toughest mountain stages, its effect could well be considerable.

Yet no sooner did they join up, another burst at the front caused splits all over the peloton as the leaders’ advantage tumbled quickly down to just 20 seconds with 70km left. Already another it’s another 200km+ stage, a lot of wind is predicted.

In the nervous peloton, crashes occurred early on, one involving George Bennett (LottoNL-Jumbo) and Thibault Pinot (FDJ).

Thursday’s 12th stage, which takes place on Bastille Day, was due to scale the iconic Mont Ventoux summit to just under 2,000 meters but has been shortened because of forecast high winds.

Sagan’s win strengthens his hold on the points leaders’ green jersey after he took it from Cavendish on Tuesday and, given the mountains to come, the Slovakian looks certain to win the category for a fifth straight year barring accident or illness.

Mark Cavendish has happy memories of Montpellier as the Tour de France 11th stage is set to finish there on Wednesday. We will have to wait and see.

He called it quits on the second of the day’s four climbs in the Pyrenees.

“Obviously I took a few seconds on the downhill and then again on the finish here”, he said.