Peter Sagan tries to pile pressure on Sam Bennett at Tour | Video | Sticky Bottle

*Peter Sagan and his Bora-hansgrohe team specifically targeted Sam Bennett today on stage 14 of the Tour de France, though the Irish rider is still in the green jersey*

Peter Sagan and Bora-hansgrohe tried hard to crack Sam Bennett today on the Tour de France, though the Irishman finished comfortably within the time limit and retained the green jersey.

Sagan gained points on Bennett at both the intermediate sprint and at the finish in Lyon in the fight for the green jersey. However, the damage to Bennett's lead in the green jersey competition wasn't as bad as it might have been.

Bennett eventually finished in a group almost 20 minutes down. Dan Martin (Israel Start-Up Nation) was 67th today at 5:42 and Nicolas Roche, whose team took its second stage victory, finished in 89th at 8:53.

As the main favourites all finished in the reduced peloton, Primoz Roglic (Jumbo Visma) still has the yellow jersey by 44 seconds from Tadej Pogačar (UAE-Team Emirates), with Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) in 3rd at 59 seconds.

*Søren Kragh Andersen takes the stage victory into Lyon after Team Sunweb once again rode a fantastic race*

Søren Kragh Andersen took Team Sunweb's second stage win of the race after the team fired riders off the front in the finale on a day of attrition when the peloton was trimmed back to just 50 riders.

The stage was an all-out affair due to the tactics of Bora-hansgrohe in targeting Sam Bennett. The German WorldTour team went out of its way to shake off the Irish rider on the early cat 4 climb just before the intermediate sprint.

Max Schachmann drilled it up that climb with team mate Sagan on his wheel as Bennett sat on them, though let them go after a time.

At that point two riders - Stefan Kung (Groupama FDJ) and Edward Theuns (Trek-Segafredo) - were up the road and they took the two first placings at the intermediate sprint.

Sagan was 3rd followed by Schachmann and then Bennett was 2nd in the sprint from the bunch, so 6th across the line. That meant Sagan scored 15 points and Bennett scored 10.

Lara Gillespie attacks Dolomite stage as Giro hits high mountains — *Sam Bennett's group sat up and rode to the finish when it became clear Bora-hansgrohe were not going to stop working on the front after splitting the field on the first proper climb of the day*

Video - Italy's hero Balsamo mobbed mid-stage during Giro TT — *Sam Bennett's group sat up and rode to the finish when it became clear Bora-hansgrohe were not going to stop working on the front after splitting the field on the first proper climb of the day*

However, after a regrouping, Bora-hansgrohe then piled on the pressure for a sustained period and jettisoned Bennett and some of his team mates, as well as about 50 other riders.

The damage was done on the cat 2 Col de Beal, crested after 68km, on the 194km staged from Clermont-Ferrand to Lyon.

And while Bennett had many of his Deceuninck-QuickStep team mates for company back the road, Bora-hansgrohe kept pounding away on the front of the peloton. The Bennett group sat up once the gap was almost three minutes and was continuing to grow.

However, while Bennett's group finished 19:48 down and Sagan survived in the front group, he could only take 4th place on the stage after Kragh Andersen jumped clear solo in the closing kilometres to win.

*Bora-hansgrohe may have gone after Sam Bennett today but the Irishman was still in green at the end of the stage into Lyon*

Luka Mezgec (Mitchelton-Scott) took the bunch sprint for 2nd some 15 seconds after the solo winner, with Simone Consonni (Cofidis) 3rd.

Sagan's 4th place on the stage secured a further 18 points, ensuring his net points gain today was 23 points.

However, Bennett still leads Sagan by 262 points to 219 and Sagan still faces a major challenge in trying to close that gap, which appears unlikely.

Tomorrow's stage features an intermediate sprint after 57.5km and as the course is flat to that point, Sam Bennett can score more points there than Sagan before three big climbs, including a summit finish on the Grand Colombier when the yellow jersey fight was expected to be intense.