Jesús Herrada (Cofidis) bravely chased Alexey Lutsenko (Astana) in the closing stages of stage 6 of the Tour de France on Thursday.

Herrada, who had been with Lutsenko all day, fell off the bike on the final Class 1 climb, but his steady pace allowed him to close the gap to 25 seconds. But when Luchenko opened the gas pedal again, Elada's chances of winning a stage in Spain's first Tour de France this year were completely gone.

A former national champion who also had a near-miss in this year's Spanish road race (he suffered a mechanical problem just before winning), Elada has already won a stage at his home Grand Tour, the Vuelta a España, in 2019 and led for two days in 2018

But he has also won the Vuelta a España in the past.

But the Cofidis racer recognized that his chances for his first stage win were all but shattered by Lutsenko's dominance on Thursday, and he tried his best to pull back, but without much success.

"It's a pity that the others were stronger, but success in the Tour comes at a high price," the 30-year-old told Spanish radio.

"Seeing that there was no break yesterday [Wednesday], I thought I could go for it today. 'We eight were very motivated, we ran hard all day. Still, it was tough to escape

"Then on the first category climb, I decided to keep a steady pace on my own rather than use too much energy attacking. But there was one rider I couldn't catch, and I could see him, but he was kind of strong.

"It was a great opportunity to try to win a Tour stage in Cofidis for the first time since 2008. But at this point everyone has too much energy.