 The early break was formed by Antoine Duchesne ( Team Europcar ) , Thomas De Gendt ( Lotto – Soudal ) and Chris Anker Sørensen ( Tinkoff – Saxo ) . They earned a lead of more than eight minutes , with De Gendt winning the first seven mountain sprints of the day . This won him enough points to put him in the lead of the mountains classification . Duchesne was dropped on the first second @-@ category climb of the day , the Côte de La <unk> , which came after 152 km ( 94 mi ) . Work in the main peloton from Orica – GreenEDGE had reduced the deficit significantly and , on the <unk> , AG2R La Mondiale drove hard to split the peloton in two . Rafał Majka ( Tinkoff – Saxo ) was among the riders temporarily distanced , though his teammates were able to bring him back into the main group . 
