A weary peloton took things easy after the double ascent of Mont Ventoux on Wednesday, with an opportunistic breakaway led home by Nils Politt, who took the biggest victory of his career in Nîmes. After a string of top-five finishes in the Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders, the 27-year-old from Cologne has never won a stage in one of Europe’s Grand Tours of Italy, France or Spain. “It’s my fifth time in the Tour and it’s the biggest dream I could ever have,” he said. “The stage was quite nervous and even from the first five kilometres, in the wind, we had echelons. After the Mont Ventoux stage, everybody was happy with the breakaway and it was clear that the break would go to the finish.” The German rouleur, with the Bora-Hansgrohe team, attacked his final breakaway companions – Harrison Sweeny and Imanol Erviti – to lay the ghost of his many near-misses. “I was talking a lot with my sports director and my coach in the team car behind,” he said. “They know about my power, so they said: ‘Just try it – go and don’t look back,’ so I did and got 10 seconds, then 23, then 30. After that, it was game over.” A gusting mistral split the peloton apart in the opening kilometres, but the pace settled down after the race entered the more sheltered roads through the Gorges de l’Ardèche, a 13-rider breakaway moving clear. With Julian Alaphilippe riding in the breakaway, Mark Cavendish and his Deceuninck Quick-Step teammates were more than happy to let the move go ahead. Fifty kilometres from the finish, the break led the slumbering peloton by more than 12 minutes, but on the approach to Nîmes, the group split with Sweeny, Erviti, the time-trial specialist Stefan Küng and Politt racing ahead to contest the finish. After the abandonment of his team leader, Peter Sagan, before the start due to an injured knee, Politt rode hard to lose the most dangerous pursuers in the breakaway group behind, which contained Alaphilippe and the veteran German sprinter André Greipel. Back in the peloton Tadej Pogacar, the race leader and defending champion, said he felt much better after Wednesday’s momentary flash of weakness towards the summit of the Ventoux. “Maybe because it wasn’t so hot. I felt good and the legs were turning great.” With the Pyrenean climbing stages coming this weekend, Pogacar said that if he saw an opportunity, he would grab it. Another display in the Pyrenees, similar to what was seen in the Alps, may further increase the scepticism towards him. Joxean Matxín Fernández, the UAE Emirates sports director, this week dismissed any doubts over Pogacar. “I sincerely believe that he is in the same condition as he was in last year,” he said. “The others have crashed and they lost time and Tadej has been lucky thanks to the good work of his team. “I reviewed his power numbers from 2020 and they are practically the same and the same with the number of [doping] controls that he has done as well.” When pressed further, Fernández said: “It’s a matter of opinion and I’m not going to go there.” Meanwhile, on the day the former Welcome to Yorkshire chief executive, Gary Verity, was among the Tour’s VIP guests, it was reported the ASO-run Tour de Yorkshire was once again under threat after the Tour’s French promoters decided to withdraw their £900,000 underwriting of the event. The Yorkshire tourism body’s new strategy of aligning the race more closely with promoting diversity, equality and sustainability, rather than showcasing a single sponsor, also signifies a change in direction.