Tour de France: Nibali dominates first Alpine stage in Chamrousse

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Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) cemented his overall lead in the Tour de France by winning the 13th stage atop the race's first hors categorie climb on Friday. The Italian pulled away from his closest rivals near the end of the final climb to Chamrousse, passing Rafal Majka (Tinkoff-Saxo) and Leopold König (NetApp-Endura), who eventually finished second and third.

The biggest loser of the day was Richie Porte (Team Sky), who cracked on the final climb, during a brutally hot day. The Australian struggled all the way to the finish and dropped from second overall to outside the top 10.

Nibali put in another impressive performance to take his third stage win of this year's Tour de France, but he lost an important teammate in Jakob Fuglsang, who crashed on the descent before the final climb. The Dane was able to continue, but was unable to stay with the lead group. Nibali remained in the main group, marking every move before jumping away to take not only the win but put time into all his rivals.

"It's a special day today. I'm very happy. I just wanted to gain as much time as I could. I knew Valverde was close to me. Porte was close to me as well. Porte had a problem and he was dropped, and in the end it was only Valverde and me," Nibali said.

The first Alpine climbs had their effects on the overall rankings. While Nibali increased his lead, Porte disappeared from his second position, which was taken over by Alejandro Valverde, at 3:37. Michal Kwiatkowski (Omega Pharma-Quickstep) was dropped even earlier, but rallied back to hold onto 11th place overall.

With Porte out of the picture, the battle for third place overall was between the two Frenchmen, Romain Bardet (AG2R) and Thibaut Pinot (FDJ). Despite matching Nibali and Valverde for most of the stage, Pinot did not get enough time on the AG2R rider to leapfrog him and Bardet sits third at 4:24. Pinot is 16 seconds further back.

How it unfolded

The 13th stage of 197.5km got off to a sombre start as the peloton observed a moment of silence for the victims of Malaysian Air flight 17. Many of those on board were from the Netherlands, and Dutch teams Belkin and Giant-Shimano wore black armbands.

The group of the day formed after 18 kilometres with Jan Bakelants (Omega Pharma-Quick Step), Rudy Molard (Cofidis, Solutions Credits), Bartosz Huzarski (NetApp), Brice Feillu (Bretagne), Giovanni Visconti (Movistar), Alessandro De Marchi (Cannondale), Blel Kadri (AG2R), Kristjan Durasek (Lampre) and Daniel Oss (BMC) moving clear.

The gap hovered around three to four minutes, before finally creeping up to about five minutes, but it didn't stay there long. Katusha moved to the head of the chase and steadily brought it down again. It was under the two minute mark with 75km to go and the day's major climbs still to come.

Into the Alps

The first of the Alpine climb was a newcomer to the race, the Col de Palaquit, a category one climb, 14 kilometres in length, with an average gradient of six percent.

The gap dropped to the one-minute mark and the road started going up, and the lead group fell apart. Kadri. Bakelants were the only two survivors as the high gradient and even higher temperatures took their toll. But De Marchi not only came back but passed them on the climb.

The Italian forged ahead but behind him the peloton was shattering. He had built up nearly a one-minute lead, with the much-reduced field about another minute behind the two chasers. Bakelants finally took off in chase of the leader, with Kadri unable to respond.

De Marchi kept pulling away, and crossed over the top of the Palaquit a minute ahead of Bakelants. The field had dropped back, and was some 2:30 behind, with the gap then going up to around three minutes.

De Marchi took his solo lead up the day's final climb, and the first hors categorie climb of the 2014 Tour. But the long climb and heat had their effects. Both Bakelants and Mate fell back into the field and with 15 kilometres remaining, the Cannondale rider had less than a minute.

What once looked like a formidable gap and possibly a stage win melted away. De Marchi slowed down and the field - by now only about 20 riders - moved up, catching him with 13.8 kilometres to go.

The first big name victim was Porte (Team Sky), who fell back with just over 13km still to climb. He had a teammate with him, and up ahead, Nibali and the others looked around in amazement to see where the Sky rider had gone to.

Pinot was the first to try his luck, but Nibali and Valverde marked him. Leo König (NetApp-Endura) was the next to attack and along with Rafal Majka (Tinkoff-Saxo) the pair went clear.

Valverde briefly set the pace before unleashing a devastating attack. Only Nibali and Pinot could respond as the group behind began to splinter: Rolland, Rui Costa, Horner, Rogers all falling back.

Up ahead Majka and Konig held an 18 second margin as Valverde and Pinot traded turns. Nibali appeared content to wait, fully aware that his companions were helping him put time into Porte, Bardet and van Garderen.

Then, with 5.6 kilometres to go, Nibali attacked. Both Pinot and Valverde tried to respond but the Italian was simply too strong. He opened up a gap and in the matter of a few corners was with Konig and Majka.

There were discussions between Pinot and Valverde, not necessarily friendly, as Pinot was a threat to Valverde's place on the podium. The Spaniard tried an attack with but the Frenchman quickly drew him back.

Inevitably Nibali pulled away from Konig and Majka to take another huge step towards overall victory in the Tour.

Valverde and Pinot continued their duel to the end, with the Spaniard sprinting to take three seconds off his rival. Bardet and van Garderen had meanwhile dropped the remnants of the chase group to solidify their top five hopes.

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