Nairo Quintana (Movistar) had planned an attack on the final ascent of Friday's stage in the Tour de France.

As Rui Costa (Movistar) soloed home to take his second stage win in the Tour de France this year, the action in the elite group of riders did not unleash until the final kilometres of the Croix-Fry ascent. A move from Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) alongside John Gadret (ALM) was supposed to be the launching pad for Nairo Quintana, who eventually failed to profit after a hail storm struck the main favourites in the finale. The two Blues came together across the finish to keep Nairo in 3rd spot overall, with Valverde back into the top-ten (9th) before Saturday's 2013 Tour showdown. The slopes of Semnoz (HC; 10.7km / 8.5%) will close a short, 125-kilometre trek starting at Annecy and including five other rated climbs, most notably the Mont Revard (Cat-1) with 47km remaining.

"We're all really happy about Rui's victory. We had three riders at the front and they did a superb job,” Quintana said. “This victory proves that we are still a solid team, able to fight for all goals. In my case, the final climb was really fast and the rain took us a bit off the mood to attack. We tried to send Valverde ahead in the finale to see if we could bridge later, but we had no chance to attack - at least we ended up on the podium with no troubles. We will have to see how the stage unfolds tomorrow; sometimes one thinks that things will go some way, and they turn the other way round in reality. It will be a hard day to keep the podium and we will have to pay attention to any attack from our rivals."

Before Saturday’s mountain stage Quintana is third overall, merely 21 seconds behind Alberto Contador (Saxo-Tinkoff) and just 12 seconds ahead of Contador’s teammate Roman Kreuziger.