Joaquím Rodriguez initiated the decisive move and subsequently did most of the work on the final climb in the penultimate stage in the Tour de France on Saturday. He reached his goal of pushing Alberto Contador (Saxo-Tinkoff) off the podium to finish third overall as the former Tour winner was once again unable to maintain the pace of the best riders as the going got tough.

"Today it was a real battle,” said the Catalan rider. “I knew that only very few seconds kept me from the podium so my team and I gave our best and kept the highest pace we could, especially on the last climb. The podium is a great achievement, I'm very happy: not a lot of riders managed to enter the top-three of all the big stage races. I look forward to celebrating tomorrow with my family and my friends.”

Rodriguez said he felt that he might have been able to contest the stage win if only Chris Froome (Sky) would have assisted on the final climb. He alsom reflected on what might have been if he hadn’t crashed during the first week.

“Today I felt in a great shape: if only Froome had helped me in the last climb and led us from time to time, maybe I could have saved some energies and I could have fought for the stage victory. But never mind, the podium was the most important thing, so I'm happy like this. I don't like to take justifications, but I think without the crash in the first week my gap in the overall standings would have been less and I could have taken the second position but that’s the Tour de France for you, it's a really demanding competition, and just a little is enough to be out of the fight for a win, as it happened to Valverde.”

The next major objective for ‘Purito’ is the Vuelta, a race in which he finished third last year.

“After this Tour I'll rest a little bit and then I'll get ready for Vuelta a España. The course is suitable to my characteristics, and I would like to improve on last year's third place." 

Rodriguez trail Froome by 5’47” going into Sunday’s final stage.