Dan Martin attacks on his way to winning stage 6 at the Tour de France (Image credit: Getty Images)
The 2018 Tour de France's first visit to a real summit finish on the Mur de Bretagne in Brittany played out as expected, with Irishman Dan Martin (UAE Team Emirates) jumping away from the vastly reduced bunch in the final kilometre to take the stage win by one second over Pierre Latour (AG2R La Mondiale) and three seconds in front of the charging bunch, led across the line by Alejandro Valverde (Movistar).
Greg Van Avermaet (BMC Racing) finished 12th and held onto a three-second lead over Geraint Thomas (Team Sky), who jumped up two spots to second in GC with a two-second time bonus at the final intermediate sprint.
A five-rider breakaway animated the early going on stage 6, with Damien Gaudin (Direct Energie), Fabien Grellier (Direct Energie), Anthony Turgis (Cofidis), Dion Smith (Wanty-Groupe Gobert) and Laurent Pichon (Fortuneo-Samsic) jumping away from the bunch and building a maximum gap of six minutes before the teams of the stage hopefuls started whittling away at the advantage.
In the end, the reduced bunch passed under the final kilometre banner intact, setting up Martin's final bid for stage glory.
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