Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) confirmed his status as the strongest rider in this year’s Tour de France by crushing the opposition in the first big Alpine stage and extending his lead over nearest rival Alejandro Valverde to more than 3.30. The Italian attacked Valverde and Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) and passed leaders Leopold König (NetApp) and Rafal Majka (Tinkoff-Saxo) to take his third stage win of the race while Richie Porte (Sky) cracked completely and dropped out of the overall top 10.

 

If anyone still doubted whether Vincenzo Nibali is the strongest rider in this year’s Tour de France, those doubts must have been put firmly to rest after today’s big stage in the Alps. The race leader imposed his dominance on the race by riding away from everyone to take his third stage win of the race in solo fashion.

 

At the bottom of the final climb, Nibali seemed to be slightly in trouble as he only had teammate Tanel Kangert at his side and Movistar seemed to have big plans to attack the race leader. The Spanish team hit the front and significantly whittled down the peloton while Nibali stayed calm in the front end of the group.

 

When John Gadret swung off as the final Movistar rider, the pace went down and Leopold König was quick to exploit the situation. The Czech took off and was quickly joined by Rafal Majka (Tinkoff-Saxo) who did a great job to bridge the gap.

 

Behind, Richie Porte (Sky) had cracked and the Australian was now being escorted to the finish by his teammate Mikel Nieve. Meanwhile, Thibaut Pinot launched several attacks but failed to get rid of Nibali who responded to all his accelerations.

 

Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) finally made his big attack and at first, Nibali didn’t react. However, the Italian stayed calm and quickly closed the gap with Pinot on his wheel.

 

The trio picked up Laurens Ten Dam (Belkin) and Nibali was content to follow wheels while Valverde and Pinot swapped turns on the front. At an opportune moment, he launched his own attack and his rivals didn’t even try to respond.

 

In a matter of seconds, he had bridged the gap to Majka and König and stayed with the pair for a little while. Clearly the strongest rider in the group, however, he soloed clear inside the final 3km and from there the outcome was never in doubt.

 

Impressively, König and Majka managed to limit their losses to just 10 seconds but they couldn’t stop Nibali from winning the stage. The Italian had plenty of time to celebrate his victory while Majka won the sprint for third.

 

50 seconds later, Valverde crossed the line in 4th, 3 seconds ahead of Bardet, to move up to second in the overall standings. However, the Spaniard is now a massive 3.37 behind Nibali who seems to almost have locked up the overall victory.

 

Romain Bardet (Ag2r) fought courageously and finished with Tejay van Garderen 1.23 behind Nibali to move into third. Pinot is now fourth while van Garderen rounds out the top 5.

 

For Porte, the day ended as a disaster as the Australian lost almost 9 minutes and dropped out of the top 10. As Nieve waited for his captain, Sky is now without any GC opportunities in this race.

 

The first big mountain stage

After 12 days of racing, the Tour de France finally hit the high mountains in stage 13 which brought them over 197.5km from Saint-Etienne to a mountaintop finish in Chamrousse. The riders tackled a small category 3 climb in the opening part but from there the roads were flat until the bottom of the Col de Palaquit 60km from the finish. The category 1 climb was followed by a descent and a short stretch in the valley which preceded the final 18.2km climb to the finish.

 

For the third day in a row, the riders took the start under brutally hot conditions. All 177 riders who finished yesterday’s stage signed in and they headed out for a brutally fast start of the stage.

 

A fast start

The attacks went thick and fast right from the beginning of the stage and the first riders to get a significant gap were Alessandro De Marchi (Cannondale), Jose Serpa (Lampre) and Yukiya Arashiro (Europcar). The trio was joined by Jens Voigt (Trek), Brice Feillu (Bretagne) and Luke Durbrige (Orica-GreenEDGE) to form strong sextet but after 11km of racing, the group was caught.

 

The attacking continued, with an 8-rider group taking off. It split in two, leaving just 4 riders out front, and they were joined by 3 riders to form an escape that started the first climb with a 10-second advantage. Giovanni Visconti (Movistar), De Marchi, Blel Kadri (Ag2r), Jack Bauer (Garmin), Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Shimano), Kristijan Durasek (Lampre-Merida) and Daniel Oss (BMC) made up  the group but Bauer was dropped as soon as they started to climb.

 

A reshuffling of the break

Marcel Kittel (Giant-Shimano) had suffered an untimely puncture and Arthur Vichot, Arnaud Demare, Julien Simon, Chengi Ji and Bauer were among the many riders to get dropped by the peloton which was led by Astana. The Kazakh team was content with the situation and so Katusha took over, keeping the gap stable at around 20 seconds.

 

Dumoulin punctured out of the front group while Feillu and Bartosz Huzarski (NetApp) bridged across. A crash brought down Jurgen Van Den Broeck (Lotto Belisol) but the Belgian was able to rejoin the peloton.

 

Bakelants and Molard bridge the gap

The peloton finally slowed down a bit but Jan Bakelants (OPQS) and Rudy Molard (Cofidis) still hadn’t given up. The pair took off in pursuit and as Visconti beat Kadri in the sprint for the points at the top, they were 30 seconds behind.

 

The junction was made on the descent that also allowed many sprinter to rejoin the peloton which was 2.15 behind at the top. The gap continued to grow and reached 3.10 at the 38km mark but Katusha showed their intentions by keeping the gap stable at around the 3-minute mark.

 

Katusha ride hard

While it was announced that a sick Vichot left the race, Katusha allowed the gap to reach 5.00 but then the Russian team really kicked into action. Gatis Smukulis, Vladimir Isaychev, Alexander Porsev and Luca Paolini started to ride a lot harder and now the gap was coming down.

 

While Daniel Navarro (Cofidis) and Janier Acevedo (Garmin) both stepped off the bike, the Russian team had reduced their deficit to 3.10 with 88km to go. Up ahead, the escapees had to ride hard to maintain their advantage and Oss was riding so fast that he even got a slight gap.

 

Feillu gives up

The Italian decided to wait for his companions but the chase was now gaining more momentum as Europcar added Yohann Gene, Bryan Coquard and Kevin Reza to the team of chasers. 5km from the bottom of the final climb, the gap was down to just 1.30.

 

On the small hills preceding the climb, Oss and Durasek got a small gap. The group reformed but Feillu gave up and decided to save his energy for later.

 

The break splits up

As they started to climb, Kadri and De Marchi got a gap while Bakelants and Molard set off in pursuit. In the peloton, Alexandre Pichot set the pace for Europcar but when they hit the ascent, Yukiya Arashiro took over.

 

Bakelants and Molard joined the leaders but Kadri was riding really fast. De Marchi was the first to fall off and moments later Molard also had to give up.

 

Kwiatkowski in difficulty

Due to Arashiro’s hard pace, the peloton was exploding to pieces and the first notable victim was Michal Kwiatkowski (OPQS). However, the Pole managed to rejoin the peloton on a small descent at the midpoint.

 

De Marchi had gone into TT mode and passed Kadri and Bakelants to quickly open a big gap. Meanwhile Arashiro brought back most of the early escapees and Jerome Pineau (IAM) who had launched a futile attack.

 

Mate attacks

With 52km to go, Luis Angel Mate (Cofidis) launched an attack and got a bit of help from his teammate Molard before he started to approach De Marchi. Meanwhile, Bakelants had dropped Kadri who gave up and fell back to the peloton.

 

When Arashiro swing off, the pace went down which allowed Pineau to attack again. Lieuwe Westra hit th front for Astana but he only set a modest pace. Nonetheless, Pineau was brought back.

 

Fuglsang crashes

Tanel Kangert took over the pace-setting while De Marchi had extended his gap from a minute to 3.20. At the top of the cimbs, he was 1.10 ahead of Bakelants and 1.38 ahead of Mate while the peloton was at 2.50.

 

Kwiatkowski was dropped again but managed to rejoin the peloton on the descent. Jakob Fuglsang (Astana) crashed hard in the downhill section and as Michele Scarponi had been dropped, Nibali now only had Kangert and Westra at his side.

 

Rogers attacks

Westra set a modest pace down the descent before Movistar took over. However, the pace was not really fast and De Marchi reopened his gap to 3.40 when he won the intermediate sprint. Greg Van Avermaet) BMC) sprinted slightly ahead to score a few points.

 

Mate was brought back but the peloton was now riding really slowly. Michael Rogers (Tinkoff-Saxo) exploited the opportunity to attack but was quickly brought back.

 

FDJ hit the front

FDJ now hit the front with Jeremy Roy and at the bottom of the final climb he had brought the gap down to 2.30. As soon as they hit the ascent, Movistar accelerated, with Jose Joaquin Rojas and Ion Izagirre doing the early work before Gadret took over.

 

The Frenchman set a brutal pace that spelled the end for the likes of Rodriguez and Kwiatkowski. He brought back Bakelants but with 14km, he swung off which caused the pace to go down.

 

Porte drops off

Kangert took over the pace-setting and brought back De Marchi. The main group was now down to just Pinot, Peraud, VDB, Mollema, Nieve, van Garderen, Horner, Ten Dam, König, Zubedlia, Majka, Schleck, Rogers, Rolland, Costa, Porte, Valverde, Nibali, Kangert, Bardet, Stetina, van Garderenand De Marchi

 

With 12km to go, Porte was dropped and Nieve immediately fell back to help his captain. Meanwhile, Pinot launched his first attack but Nibali shut it down immediately.

 

Pinot attacks

Pinot continued to ride on the front but when he slowed down, König took off. The Czech quickly got a big gap before Pinot made his next attack.

 

Again Nibali shut it down and when the pace went down, Majka took off. The Pole quickly bridged the gap to König and moment later Ten Dam set off in pursuit.

 

Valverde makes his move

With 10km to go, Valverde made his attack and there was no immediate response from Nibali. However, the Italian managed to close the gap with Pinot on his wheel. The trio picked up Ten Dam while Valverde and Pinto swapped turns on the front.

 

Behind, a group with VDB, Mollema, Rogers, Bardet, Peraud, Schleck, van Garderen, Zubedlia had formed but there was no cohesion. The riders constantly attacked each other but for a long time, no one was able to get clear.

 

Nibali gets clear

With 6km to go, Nibali made his move and he quickly bridged the gap to König and Majka. Behind, Bardet had gone clear on his own but was joined by van Garderen and later also Schleck, Peraud and Van Den Broeck.

 

Valverde tried to attack Pinot but when he failed, they started to work together. At the same time, Bardet attacked again and this time he got a gap with van Garderen.

 

Solo win for Nibali

Schleck and Peraud set off in pursuit and stayed clear for a long time but ultimately they were caught by Schleck, Mollema, Zubeldia and Van Den Broeck.

 

With 3km to go, Nibali dropped König and Majka and from there it was a solo procession all the way to the line. Nibali held off his chasers to take the stage win ahead of Majka and König while Valverde won the sprint for fourth. An embattled Porte rolled across the line almost 9 minutes later.