Pello Bilbao takes emotional stage win in memory of Gino Mader and launches himself right back into GC contention at the Tour de France

Another brilliantly enthralling day of racing at the Tour de France has seen Pello Bilbao take a breakaway stage win and move right back into podium contention.

After the first rest day of the Tour de France, the peloton will have a hilly day through the Massif Central. This is a textbook breakaway day, with a hilly and roller-coaster start, and several climbs throughout the day with almost no flat kilometres.

Right from the flag drop the pace at the front of the race was absolutely infernal. With two categorised climbs in the first thirty kilometres, the fight for the breakaway took a long while to finally snap the elastic.

All the while this fight at the front was going on, more and more riders were dropping out the back of an ever-thinning peloton, with some top quality riders such as David Gaudu, Wout van Aert and Romain Bardet all dropping out of the GC bunch.

Once the race finally began to settle down, French cycling fans breathed a massive sigh of relief with 108km to go as the Gaudu, Bardet group managed to latch back onto the group containing the GC favourites.

Up ahead meanwhile, were 14 riders including best ranked in the GC, Pello Bilbao who started the day 7:37 down. Alongside him included riders such as Esteban Chaves, Warren Barguil, Mattias Skjelmose, Julian Alaphilippe and Ben O'Connor.

Chaves made an attempt to try and go it alone but with just over 75km left he was pulled back by the break and all 14 riders regrouped with a 3:10 lead over the peloton.

Alpecin-Deceuninck were keen for the stage win with Mathieu van der Poel taking to the front of the peloton and bring to gap down towards 2 minutes as Krists Neilands attacked from the breakaway although he was quickly brought back.

On a descent with around 40km to go, van der Poel and Wout van Aert rode clear of the peloton together in a moment reminiscent of the spring classics.

Perhaps hearing that two of the best riders of their generation were chasing, the breakaway upped the pace and began ascending the final climb of the day very quickly.

Michal Kwiatkowski, Anthony Perez and Skjelmose were immediately put into trouble and Neilands again tried his luck solo.

Behind, the INEOS Grenadiers took up the chase with Pello Bilbao threatening to take Carlos Rodriguez 4th position in the general classification.

Ultimately the van Aert and van der Poel's move led to nothing but at the top of the final climb of the day, Neilands held a 38-second lead over his nearest challengers with 28km of descent to go.

With 10km to go, Neilands' advantage over the 5 chasers that included Bilbao, Chaves, O'Connor, Georg Zimmermann and Antonio Pedrero was a slim 14 seconds.

With 3km to go, Neilands was caught and the lead group became 6.

Ben O'Connor was the first to make a move although he couldn't break free. Zimmerman was next and only Bilbao could manage to follow.

As they began to play games though the rest of the group came back into contact. When Bilbao launched his sprint there was no stopping the Bahrain - Victorious rider as he took the win and launched himself right back into GC contention.

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