Magnus Cort, who wore the best climber's jersey with polka dots in the Tour de France, completed a week of stages in Lausanne on Saturday.

The Dane, who was in the breakaway group for three mountain stages early in the race and earned 11 mountain points, tried again at La Super Planche des Belles Filles, but managed to move to the front on Tuesday's 10th stage to Megève.

Not only did he succeed in breaking away for the fourth time in nine days on a Tour de France stage, but he also took the win at the end of a fast day of 148.5 km through the Alps.

Cote was part of a 10-man group that fought for the finish at the end of a 22-km climb, dropping out of the pack 6 km before the finish and rejoining with several others in the final kilometer.

His victory, just centimeters ahead of Nick Schulz (BikeExchange-Jayco), ties him with wins in six stages of the Vuelta a España and from a breakaway in Carcassonne at the 2018 Tour.

"I couldn't have dreamed of anything better in the Tour so far," Colt said at the post-stage press conference. Winning the polka-dot jersey in Denmark and winning a stage here was a big deal for me. Of course, winning a stage was not a dream, but the road from hope and dream to realization is a long one."

"I am very happy and I have to thank (teammate) Alberto Bettiol. Without him at the front, I wouldn't have had the benefit of sitting on the wheel and I wouldn't have been able to finish in the lead group.

Cort's victory was not immediately apparent to onlookers as he and Schulz went toe-to-toe in a sprint contest at Altiport above Megeve; the two jumped over veteran Luis Leon Sanchez, a veteran of the Bahrain victory.

The victory was not immediately obvious to Colt either, who said that while sprinting with Schultz, he did not know who had won.

"I think I realized about a minute after the finish," he said. 'First there were some journalists around me, then I could hear the sports director in my earphones. I had to wait a little bit, but it was all I could do to breathe."

"After the crash I kept going at my own pace and somehow made it back to the pack. It was incredible and the finish was perfect for me.

"I didn't think about anything else in my head at that moment. I gave it everything I had until there was nothing left."

In the early stages of the race, the team had to be very careful.

Colt, who had been at the front for hundreds of kilometers, taking part in three breaks early in the race and scoring mountain points on stage 3 in his home country, ultimately had little to show for his efforts, except for his current fourth place in the mountains.

When asked if the stage win was a reward for his efforts, Colt said that he had changed his focus from the earlier stages, which had been a fruitless breakaway.

"I don't know which victory deserves the other, but some of the early breakaways in this Tour were not about finishing. They were about scoring points in the mountain competition."