Greig Leach

The early break that included Micheal Woods (EF Education First), Ilnur Zakarin (Katusha-Alpecin), Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida) and two others hoped that the peloton would be too interested in each other to bother with them. With such a short stage, but a long climb, it was going to be a bit of a long shot to stay off of the front. Behind there would be efforts to drop one another which will inevitably increase the peloton's pace. Woods has been racing most of this Tour with two broken ribs, which makes his position off the front on a big climb just that much more impressive.