Primoz Roglic (left) and Sam Bennett communicate before the start of the 14th stage of the Tour de France on Saturday. Photo: IC

 

Slovenian race leader Primoz Roglic again looked in fabulous form as he survived a test of nerves in Lyon on Saturday as the Tour de France heads into a mouthwatering series of mountain stages over the next week.

Denmark's Soren Kragh Andersen of the Sunweb team soloed to victory on a Stage 14 that saw him produce a last-gasp break into France's second city and set up another thrilling finale.

"We pulled it off, it's the kind of thing you dream of," Andersen said at the line, where no fans were allowed over the final 100 meters due to coronavirus health and safety protocols.

The 158-strong peloton left a carnival atmosphere in rugby-loving Clermont-Ferrand for a tricky run on a hot day, with Peter Sagan's Bora team taking charge as the Slovak targeted valuable sprint points in Lyon by shaking off his own rivals over the stage's five hills.

With a perilous inner-city finish it was outsider Andersen, however, who sprung a lightning attack in the final kilometer to clinch a second win for his team last week after Marc Hirschi's solo win on Thursday.

Sagan came in fourth as the bunch sprinted wildly to the line.

But Ireland's Sam Bennett remains slightly ahead of the seven-time Tour de France points winner in the race for the green jersey. With a touch of irony, Lyon's Green mayor Gregory Doucet, who last week described the Tour as "macho and polluting," handed Bennett his green jersey.

The race will climb out of Lyon and into the mountains on Sunday's Stage 15: a 174-kilometer ride featuring 35 ­kilomters of climbing in what could be 

a decisive summit finish on one of the Tour's iconic finishes, at 1,501 meters of altitude atop Grand Colombier after a final, gruelling 17.4-kilomter ascent at an average 7.1 percent gradient. "We'll see how it goes tomorrow, as usual we will just try to survive," said Roglic, who leads fellow Slovene Tadej Pogacar by 44 seconds.