Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) again proved that he is a worthy winner of the Tour de France when he crushed the opposition in the final mountain stage of the Tour de France. Clearly intent on winning the stage, he used his Astana team to control the race all day and then attacked early on the final climb to take a dominant solo victory. For the second day in a row, Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) struggled and dropped to fourth in the overall standings.

 

Going into today’s final mountain stage of the Tour de France, Vincenzo Nibali was a man on a mission. Despite having a comfortable lead in the overall standings, the Italian wanted to prove his superiority by winning on the legendary Hautacam climb.

 

Very early it became clear that his intention was to win the stage when his Astana team never allowed a big 20-rider break to get more than a 4.30 advantage. While the peloton splintered behind him, Nibali himself looked comfortable on the Col du Tourmalet, saving his energy for the final climb.

 

Very early on the ascent Chris Horner (Lampre-Merida) launched an attack but Nibali’s plan was to win in a grandiose way. Instead of playing it conservatively, the Italian played hos cards very early and followed his American Vuelta rival.

 

Nibali stayed with Horner for a little while but then made another acceleration to solo clear. He sprinted past Mikel Nieve (Sky) who was the lone survivor from the early break and from there the outcome was never in doubt.

 

While Nibali did his own race a little up the climb, the battle for the podium places was fully on. An attack by Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) made Alejandro Valverde crack and while Pinot, Jean-Christophe Peraud (Ag2r) and Tejay van Garderen (BMC) rode clear, the Spaniard suffered on his own.

 

However, Valverde again proved his ability limit his losses and he made it back up to Romain Bardet (Ag2r), Laurens Ten Dam (Belkin), Bauke Mollema (Belkin) and Leopold König (NetApp) and brought Haimar Zubeldia (Trek) with him. From there, it was a fierce pursuit between Pinot and van Garderen who did all the work in their group, and Valverde who was the only rider contributing to the pace-setting in his group.

 

The Peraud group picked up Rafal Majka (Tinkoff-Saxo) who had attacked a bit earlier and in the end, the Pole and Pinot accelerated to gain a few seconds on Peraud and van Garderen. Majka seemed to be on his way to taking second but Pinot proved his great climbing skills by sprining ahead to pass the Pole. The third place was enough for Majka to secure the win in the mountains classification.

 

Behind, Valverde fought hard to limit his losses and crossed the line in 10th, conceding 49 seconds to Pinot and 44 seconds to Peraud. Hence, he slipped to fourth in the overall standings and is now 15 seconds behind Pinot who moved into second.

 

Nibali extended his lead over Pinot to 7.10 and barring disaster, he will win the race in Paris in a few days. First, he needs to get safely through tomorrow’s stage 19 which is an almost completely flat affair. A category 4 climb inside the final 20km can make things complicated for the sprinters and it could both be a day for a bunch kick or a successful break.

 

A third day in the Pyrenees

After two hard days, the mountain stages came to an end with the short 145.5km stage from Pau to the top of the Hautacam. The first part was pretty easy as only a pair of category 3 climbs could challenge the riders but in the second half, the riders first tackled the Col du Tourmalet before descending to the bottom of the final ascent.

 

The riders took the start under a slightly cloudy sky and all riders who finished yesterday’s stage signed in. Things got serious right from the beginning as lots of riders wanted to go on the attack.

 

Lots of attacks

Mickael Delage (FDJ) was the first to accelerate and John Degenkolb, Richie Porte, Cyril Gautier, Simon Clarke, Daniel Oss, Vladimir Isaychev, Benjamin King, Adam Hansen and Jens Voigt were all part of the early skirmishes. The first rider to get a significant gap was Perrig Quemeneur (Europcar) who rode away on his own.

 

A small group got across but moments later, it was back together. Steven Kruijswijk and Jean-Marc Bideau launched the next attack before Sylvain Chavanel took off on his own.

 

20 riders take off

Bartosz Huzarski and Daniel Oss passed the Frenchman who fell back to a big chase group that was made up of Mikel Nieve, Matthieu Ladagnos, Kevin Reza, Bryan Coquard, Thomas Voeckler, Yury Trofimov, Lars Boom, Ion Izagirre, Jesus Herrada, Tiago Machado, Jan Bakelants, Florian Guillou, Alessandro De Marchi, Marco Marcato, Marcel Wyss and Blel Kadri. As the peloton slowed down, the two front groups merged and a big 20-rider group had been formed.

 

They were allowed to build a 4-minute advantage but that was as much as Astana would allow them. For most of the flat part, Maxim Iglinskiy, Dmitriy Gruzdev, Andriy Grivko and Alessandro Vanotti kept the gap stable between 3.30 and 4.00.

 

A battle for points

Huzarski beat Reza on the first climb of the day while Boom was fastest on the second of the two small ascents. In the intermediate sprint, Coquard beat Ladagnous, Boom and Simon to edge slightly closer to Peter Sagan in the points competition.

 

As they approached the Tourmalet, the peloton accelerated and at the bottom, the gap was only 3.30. Coquard and Reaza rode hard on the front for a little while before the former blew up and fell off the pace.

 

Chavanel attacks

With 62km to go, Chavanel launched the first attack and as there was no immediate reaction, he immediately got a big gap. Mahcado was the next rider to get dropped while further back, the peloton exploded to pieces under the hard pace set by Iglinskiy.

 

Nieve and Kadri set off in pursuit and they bridged the gap to Chavanel who was unable to keep up with them. Meanwhile, Lieuwe Westra had taken over the pace-setting in the peloton which was too much for Jurgen Van Den Broeck and Joaquim Rodriguez who both fell off.

 

The chase group is whittled down

The chase group had now been whittled down to just Bakelants, Herrada, Trofimov, Izagirre, Simon, Oss, Huzarski, Marcato and De Marchi and they quickly passed Chavanel. Marcato, Simon, Herrada, Oss, Izagirre and Bakelants were the next to blow up, leaving just De Marchi, Huzarski and Trofimov to press on.

 

Nieve dropped Kadri but the Frenchman managed to fight his way back to his companion. Meanwhile, Westra – with a bit of help from Jakob Fuglsang – had whittled the peloton down to just around 30 riders.

 

Valverde attacks on the descent

Kadri again lost a bit of ground but Nieve decided to wait for him and the Frenchman crested the summit as the first rider. At the top, they were 1.45 ahead of their chasers and 4.30 ahead of the peloton after Michael Rogers had done a final turn on the front before Thibaut Pinot hit the descent as the first rider.

 

Simon, Oss and Bakelants rejoined the chase group while Valverde made a brave attack on the descent. Bridging the gap to Herrada and Izagirre who rode hard for their captain, he managed to build a 20-second advantage and put FDJ and BMC on the defensive.

 

Valverde is brought back

However, Michael Schär and Ladagnous were chasing hard and they managed to bring the Valverde group back. Then Astana went back to work and Michele Scarponi and Fuglsang led the group onto the final climb.

 

Nieve and Kadri were now just 1.40 ahead of the peloton and Nieve quickly dropped Kadri. Meanwhile, the chase group splintered as Simon, Oss, Bakelants and Trofimov all fell off the pace before Huzarski also had to surrender.

 

Nibali makes his move

Scarponi led the peloton on the lower slopes but with 11km to go, Tanel Kangert took over. 1km further up the road, Horner launched his move and Nibali was the only one to respond.

 

They flew past De Marchi while John Gadret started to work for Movistar. The main group was now down to just Valverde, Gadret, Majka, Kangert, Mollema, Ten Dam, Kruijswijk, Peraud, Bardet, Kadri, Jeannesson, Pinot, van Garderen, Rolland, Gautier, Schleck, Zubeldia, König as Kadri had fallen back to the main group and even took a short turn on the front.

 

Nibali passes Nieve

With 9km to go, Nibali left Horner behind and 8km from the finish, he passed Nieve. Meanwhile, Majka had set off in pursuit as Arnold Jeannesson had now taken over the pace-setting for FDJ.

 

Majka passed Nieve who had started to fade while the main group was now made up of Jeannesson, Pinot, Mollema, Valverde, Ten Dam, van Garderen, Peraud, Bardet, König, Schleck, Zubeldia, Kruijswijk. Wit 6km to go, van Garderen set a hard pace that put Kruijswijk, Schleck and Zubeldia into difficulty.

 

Valverde cracks

With 5km to go, Pinot attacked and while van Garderen and Peraud bridged the gap, Valverde cracked. He fell behind while König, Ten Dam, Mollema and Bardet were a little further ahead.

 

Valverde dug deep and with Zubeldia, he managed to cloaw his way back to the Mollema group while Majka decided to wait for Pinot, Peraud and van Garderen as he continued to lose ground. From there it was a fierce pursuit between those two groups while Nibali rode his own race on the front.

 

The race leader took an impressive solo win while Majka tried to sprint in for second. In the end, howeverm he was passed by Pinot while Valverde managed to save his podium aspirations by crossing the line in 10th.