With this years Tour basically done and dusted - the race head to the Alps for three days of what turned out to be quite exciting, and excellent racing.
It all started off with the final ITT of this years race - which was, unsurprisingly, won by Chris Froome, although he did have the grace to not entirely flog the field in an embrassingly dodgy manner. Instead he won by just under 10 seconds from Alenjadro Valverde and Joaquin Rodriquez. As can be seen from the finishing podium, the race against the clock was relatively mountainous, and as a result most of the high finishers were climbers who those still high up in the overall standings. The true power men and everyone else basically just had a rest day ahead of the brutish double assault of L'Alpe d'Huez. That included Cadel Evans who is having an absolute barry of a tour and couldn't even scrape into the top 150!
Thursday saw the Queen stage of this years Tour, a 172km epic that took in two ascents of the mythical L'Alpe d'Huez. It truly was the stage of the race, and brought back memories of the epic racing of old. Up front, France got their first stage win as Christophe Riblon rode down brave long-time leader Tejay Van Garderen in the closing moments. And further down the mountain Chris Froome showed his first real weakness of the event. While main rival Alberto Contador was dropped, Froome illegaly sent teammate Richie Porte back to his team car to get food inside the final 10k (totally illegal and outside the rules). While it helped him recover to some stage, he still lost over a minute to pure climbers Joaquin Rodriguez and Nairo Quintana, who all but sealed his victory with 4th on the stage, behind young and promising Italian star Moreno Moser.
Friday was a regulation mountain breakaway result, with a large group going clear and Rue Costa proving the best of them to take his second stage win at this years tour. Andreas Kloden turned back the clock to finish second, just under a minute behind Costa while Jan Bakelandts continued to show his promise finishing third. Pierre Rolland managed to recover from his injuries enough to participate in the day's break, and as such close to within 1 point of Chris Froome for the polka-dot jersey. The main group rolled in some 8 minutes down with all of the main protagonists present.
So what is the wash up of all that. Well the only competition still up for grabs (barring crash, injury, or doping) is the King of the Mountains - with Chris Froome now holding just a 1 point lead over Pierre Rolland, with a further 3 riders within 11 points of the lead. With plenty of climbing points still available tomorrow the jersey is certainly up for grabs. I think Quintana would probably be the most deserved winner so will back him in from here. Froome leads the GC by over 5 minutes from Contador and Quintana (who leads the white jersey competition by over 10 minutes) while Peter Sagan has a 100 point lead in the Green Jersey competition over Mark Cavendish.
Yellow Jersey - Chris Froome
Green Jersey - Peter Sagan
Polka Dot Jersey - Chris Froome
White Jersey - Nairo Quintana
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