Van Avermaet into yellow with stage five win
Greg Van Avermaet soloed to victory on stage five of the Tour de France in Le Lioran to take over the yellow jersey for the first time in his career.
The BMC rider attacked out of the day's breakaway, leaving the last of the other escapees - fellow Belgian Thomas De Gendt of Lotto Soudal - at the foot of the penultimate climb of a challenging day which took the race into the Massif Central.
Van Avermaet began the day only 18 seconds off Peter Sagan's lead in the overall classification and comfortably took over yellow as the peloton finished several minutes down - with Tinkoff's Sagan even further back after being dropped on the first of two category two climbs in the last 30 kilometres of the 216km stage from Limoge.
It was a second career Tour stage win for Van Avermaet, who is not considered a contender in the general classification. BMC's hopes are instead pinned to Tejay van Garderen and Richie Porte.
After stage honours were decided, attention shifted back down the mountain as Movistar's Nairo Quintana attacked to briefly leave defending champion Chris Froome in his wake although Team Sky swiftly responded.
Further back, two-time winner Alberto Contador (Tinkoff) was dropped as he continues to feel the affects of two crashes in the first two days of the Tour.
It took a while for the day's break to establish itself but eventually Van Avermaet, De Gendt (Lotto Soudal), Cyril Gautier (AG2R-La Mondiale), Serge Pauwels (Dimension Data), Rafal Majka (Tinkoff), Andriy Grivko (Astana), Bartosz Huzarski (Bora-Argon 18), Romain Sicard (Direct Energie), Florian Vachon (Fortuneo-Vital Concept) got themselves away.
Their advantage grew to seven minutes but once it stabilised, Van Avermaet, Grivko and De Gent attacked off the front, and by the time they reached the first of the decisive climbs at the back end of the stage, they were two-and-a-half minutes clear of the remaining six riders.
The peloton appeared content to let them battle it out for stage honours amongst themselves, allowing the lead to reach 15 minutes at one point, but the category two ascent of Puy Mary shook things up completely.
As the leaders saw their advantage halved by a Movistar and Team Sky-led peloton, Sagan was dropped from the pack in the yellow jersey along with Astana's Giro d'Italia winner Vincenzo Nibali.
Van Avermaet then left De Gendt behind on the penultimate climb of the day, the Col du Perthus, still 17km from home.
By the summit, the Belgian had pulled out a gap of 55 seconds over De Gendt, and was on his way to victory.