Rafal Majka tames the Tourmalet to win stage 11 at Cauterets

Majka, 25, took advantage of a ceasefire in the battle between the race favourites to break clear in the 188km stage from Pau and secure the third Tour stage win of his career.

The double stage winner from last year’s Tour was part of an eight-man break that formed ahead of the Col d’Aspin after three leg-stretching lower-category climbs.

Breaking clear of his fellow escapees on the Col du Tourmalet, Majka held on to the win despite a late fight-back by Ireland’s Dan Martin (Cannondale-Garmin) on the Cote de Cauterets, the sixth and final climb that peaked out three kilometres from the finish.

Martin crossed the line one minute down on Majka to finish the bridesmaid for the second time in this year’s Tour following his second-place to Alexis Vuillermoz at Mur-de-Bretagne in stage eight.

Winner of the polka dot jersey last year in Paris, Majka used his win to send his best wishes to team-mate Basso who was forced to withdraw from the Tour on Monday's rest day after being diagnosed with testicular cancer.

A successful operation on Wednesday gave 37-year-old Basso the all clear - and the Italian veteran would have revelled in his hospital bed to see Majka stamp his authority on the race.

“This victory is for Ivan Basso who is at home and for Daniele Bennati who crashed today,” said Majka after Bennati became the second Tinkoff-Saxo rider to withdraw from the race after hurting his leg in a fall.

Race leader Froome of Team Sky finished safely alongside his rivals in a sizable pack of race favourites to retain his yellow jersey after a second sweltering day in the high mountains – where temperatures pushed the mid-thirties.

Froome leads American Tejay Van Garderen (BMC) by 2:32 and Colombian Nairo Quintana (Movistar) by 3:09, with Majka’s Spanish team-mate Alberto Contador in sixth place just over four minute in arrears.

“I’m here to help Alberto in the general classification but we have opportunities and it’s a long race,” Majka said. “I didn’t choose today’s stage but it was really hard and I like the hot weather.”

One rider who is clearly fighting a losing battle with the heat is defending champion Vincenzo Nibali of Astana, who had another troubled day in the saddle.

Despite dictating the pace for much of the Tourmalet, the Italian was dropped on the final Cat.3 climb before conceding another 50 seconds to Froome and his rivals.

Nibali now trails Froome by 7:47 ahead of Thursday’s 195km stage 12 to Plateau de Beille – the hardest of three back-to-back summit finishes in the Pyrenees.

After an initial break of four riders was thwarted with 40km on the clock, a second break of seven riders formed after the third of three lower category climbs. The break – which included Majka and Frenchman Thomas Voeckler (Europcar) – had more than a three-minute advantage over the pack when Ireland’s Martin decided to ride off in pursuit.

Martin initially joined forced with Andriy Grivko of Astana before dropping the Ukrainian at the foot of the Col d’Aspin. The 28-year proceeded to ride the Cat.1 Aspin like a man possessed, catching the leaders in time to leave them for dead and pick up maximum points over the summit.

The break held an advantage of almost eight minutes on the peloton going over the Aspin and Martin looked a certainty to take a win in the Pyrenees the day after a Team Sky one-two for the second time in his career.

Majka, however, had other plans. With the Astana-led pack closing the gap to five minutes on the Col du Tourmalet, the Pole took things into his own hands by riding clear half way up the highest peak in the Pyrenees.

By the time he reached the summit to win the Souvenir Jacques Goddet prize, Majka had two minutes on his fellow escapees Serge Pauwels (MTN-Qhubeka) and Emanuel Buchmann (Bora-Argon 18), with Martin, paying for his earlier efforts, another two minutes off the pace.

Back with the main favourites and it was another bad day for the French stars of the 2014 Tour as Jean-Christophe Peraud, Romain Bardet (both Ag2R-La Mondiale) and Thinaut Pinot (FDJ) were distanced.

Youngster Warren Barguil (Giant-Alpecin) looked to be following suit but the 23-year-old dug deep to stay in contention. Barguil crossed the summit of the Tourmalet a minute in arrears but managed to rejoin the yellow jersey group after a daredevil descent than included near run-ins with both a herd of cows and the LottoNL-Jumbo team car.

Where many of his countrymen are dropping their heads, Barguil is rallying and battling on.

The obvious chose would be that man Majka, who now has three wins from his first one-and-a-half Tours. There would also be a strong case for Emanuel Buchmann, the 22-year-old German national champion, who put in a superb shift to take third place for Bora-Argon in his debut Tour.

But the prize has to go to Dan Martin, who finished second for a second time after a quite extraordinary day in his beloved Pyrenees. He rode the Col d’Aspin as if it were the deciding summit finish of the stage – and after a slight wobble on the Tourmalet, he nearly did enough to turn things round on the final climb, where in 2008 he secured his overall win in the Route de Sud.

A vintage performance from Martin – who will be hoping for third time lucky as he continues his bid for a stage win in the coming days.

On a day in which six riders – including former world champion Rui Costa (Lampre-Merida) and Majka’s Tinkoff-Saxo team-mate Bennati – withdrew because of injury, fatigue or heat exhaustion, there were many losers in the pack.

There’s also Andre Greipel to consider, after the German struggled at the intermediate sprint to hand the green jersey back to his rival Peter Sagan.

But collectively the biggest loser was Astana, who dictated the tempo on the Tourmalet but ultimately left empty handed. Rein Taaramae withdrew and Jakob Fuglsang – the Dane who manager Alexandre Vinokourov suggested would take over leadership from Nibali – finished almost 10 minutes behind the Italian, who himself lost further ground. Oh dear...

Thursday’s 195km stage 12 is perhaps the hardest of all three of the Pyrenean stages with three testing climbs ahead of the brutish 16km final climb to Plateau de Beille.

Cannondale-Garmin manager sums up Dan Martin’s exploits to a tee...