Chris Froome (Sky) left no one doubting his superiority when he conquered he Mont Ventoux in emphatic style, building an almost unassailable 4.14 lead on GC in the process. Having been joined by Nairo Quintana (Movistar) until the 1,5km to go mark, the Brit was, however, convinced that it was the Colombian who would ride away with the win.

When Chris Froome crossed the finish line on the top of the Mont Ventoux to take a dominant solo win and open up an enormous led on GC, his demonstration of force was so convincing that it is hard to imagine anyone dispose the Brit from his throne. Nonetheless, the Sky leader had to admit that he had felt himself almost fully matched by Nairo Quintana, even to such an extent that he had almost written off the stage win.

Froome had bridged the gap to Quintana with 6,8km to go after having accelerated furiously from a main group that had been whittled down to just three riders by virtue of the hard pace set by his teammate Richie Porte. Having taken a short breather, he kicked again, trying to leave his Colombian companion behind in a similar convincing fashion.

However, Quintana stayed in his wheel and when he kicked again a little later, the response from the Colombian was the same. At this point Froome started to concentrate on his GC gains and was convinced that he would have to give up his stage win ambitions.

“I didn’t imagine this," he said. "This climb is so historic and it means so much to this race - especially being the 100th edition. I really didn’t see myself winning this stage today I thought I’d have to surrender the stage to Quintana in the final. My main objective was to get more of a buffer on the GC. But I didn’t see myself winning that stage today – I really can’t believe it."
 

Instead of attacking each other, the duo started to cooperate in an attempt to distance their rivals even further. With 1,5km to go, Froome did, however, up the pace a little and that ended up being too much for Quintana.

“I was just trying to motivate him," he said. "I said ‘Come on let’s just keep pushing on. We’re getting more of an advantage on the guys behind us.’ And he did actually – hats off to him. He started working with me. The last two kilometres I don’t think I attacked he just couldn’t hold the wheel anymore.”
 

Froome praised the emerging Colombian.

“He’s a really strong climber," he said. "I did expect him to [attack] a little further out but I didn’t expect it to be that hard to try and catch him. In the last 2kms he started fading and I had a little bit left."

Prior to the stage, Froome had told reporters that Sky would do little to chase down the day's early break as the team was more concerned with the GC than the stage win. However, Europcar and later Movistar took up the responsibility and made sure that the win was to be contested by the GC riders.

As the peloton approached the final climb, Sky went to the front to set the furious pace that characterise their racing style. David Lopez, Kanstantsin Siutsou, Geraint Thomas and Ian Stannard did the early work before Peter Kenneugh and later Porte took up the gauntlet.

Team principal Dave Brailsford was glad to see his team bounce back as it had recently come under criticism due to its apparent lack of ability to support its captain.

"From this morning obviously we were concerned about the break, who was going to be in there and how that performed," he said. "That was the first part of the race. Europcar decided to chase which made it more interesting and then Movistar decided to ride in order to try and win the stage. But our plan was always the same in that we wanted to get Froomey, Richie and Pete into the ideal situation at the foot of the climb as fresh as possible. That was the job of everyone else and they did that perfectly."

"Chris was trying to put as much time as possible into his adversaries. He was thinking about the GC and time gap with the rest day tomorrow. Today was always earmarked for us as a day where we could gain time. When you’ve got the form that he’s got at the minute and he’s going well – when you’ve got your self-belief systems in place that’s what sport is all about.”
 

Froome now takes a 4.14 lead over 2nd-placed Bauke Mollema into tomorrow's rest day. Racing resumes on Tuesday with a stage to Gap that appears to be destined to be decided from a breakaway.

Starting at 14.00, you can follow that stage on CyclingQuotes.com/live.