Leopold König again proved that he is a force to be reckoned with in this year's Tour de France when he finished an impressive third in the first Alpine stage of the race. The Czech had planned to attack a bit later in the stage but with good sensations he made a brave move far earlier than planned.

Perfect start for the NetApp-Endura team in the Alps: With Leopold König reaching third place, the German team got off to a dream start on the first high mountain stage. The 26-year-old Czech launched an attack a good ten kilometers before the finish which at first only Rafal Majka was able to follow, and thus impressively underpinned his ambitions in the overall rankings.

"The first true summit finish – there was no place to hide today," said Leopold König. "In any case I wanted to ride on attack, but in the end I started the attack a bit sooner than I had meant to. I felt really good in the situation, so I tried it. The others didn't follow right away and I quickly had a small gap. Then I knew I just had to give it everything I had up until the end."

For a moment König was even able to dream of a stage victory, but then Majka as well as Vincenzo Nibali caught up with the pro from the NetApp-Endura team.

"Of course I would have liked to have won the stage," König continued, "but competing against Nibali is difficult. That's why I'm absolutely happy with the result."

"It was obvious to see that Leo was one of the strongest today," Enrico Poitschke, Sport Director of the NetApp-Endura team, said. "That it wasn't quite enough for a victory is of course too bad, we were so incredibly close – but that can still happen in the coming days,"

Poitschke looks ahead. 

"Nibali was simply stronger, but if he concentrates more on the overall rankings in the next few days, there will certainly be another opportunity to achieve our goal and to win a stage."

With third place in the day classification and only eleven seconds behind Nibali, the captain of the NetApp-Endura team catapulted forward in the overall rankings from 19th place to tenth.König's attack in the ascent to the finish line located 1730 meters above sea level could at first only be followed by the Polish Tinkoff pro Rafal Majka; then Vincenzo Nibali in the yellow jersey caught up with the two riders and broke away again three kilometers before the finish. 

After the spectacular entry into the Alps with the summit finish to Chamrousse, the climbing tour continues for the professionals tomorrow. Two first category mountain classifications and one of the highest category await the riders on the 177 kilometers from Grenoble to Risoul in the form of Col du Lautaret, Col d'Izoard and the finale in Risoul.