Tour de France: Froome crushes competition in first major summit finish

Chris Froome dropped a high explosive onto 2015 Tour de France, going on the attack from the select group of favourites on the first major summit finish at La Pierre-Saint-Martin and putting more than a minute into Nairo Quintana (Movistar), who was beaten for second on the stage by Richie Porte (Sky).

"I’m at a loss for words. That was unbelievable," Froome said after his conquest. "I couldn’t believe it when I asked the guys to push hard a little bit and we were hearing on the radio that the big names were getting dropped. It was textbook from the team, the guys rode such a good race. I’m over the moon to be able to finish it off for them."

Froome put even more time into Tejay van Garderen (BMC), Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo) and defending champion Vincenzo NIbali (Astana), who was the first of the fab five dropped. Van Garderen put in a solid display to finish 10th on the stage and keep second place, albeit now down 2:52 on Froome.

"I don’t think today was my best day, but it wasn’t all bad," van Garderen said. "I’m still keeping a good GC position, and, yeah, I think the first mountain day is always tricky. We’ve done almost two weeks without climbing any real mountains, so it can be kind of a shock to the system, especially after a rest day. I feel like it should go better from here, and I’m definitely still happy with where we’re sitting."

Just as in the opening portion of the race, Froome was the best of the pre-race favourites, and his attack with 6.5km from the summit dealt a devastating blow to his rivals.

Quintana was the only rider with Froome and teammate Porte when the attack was made, but even he slipped back to lose just over a minute. He did enough, however, to move into third overall, now 3:09 from the maillot jaune.

Nibali, who was already 2:22 behind on the GC at the start of the day, saw his hopes of a title defense fly out the window as he was dropped early and shelled a further 4:50.

The final member of the Fab Four, Contador, was one of many victims of the pre-selection that preceded Froome’s attack, and came across the line 2:50 down.

"I didn’t feel great at all today," Contador said. "I couldn’t really breathe very well and if you can’t breathe then you can’t feel your legs and as a consequence I couldn’t really feel good. I did not feel good at all today, it just wasn’t my day today. I usually go well on those sorts of days but it just didn’t go well."

The stage was rolling all the way to the start of the hors-catégorie Pierre-Saint-Martin, 15km long with an average gradient of 7.4 per cent. It was Movistar who were on the front from the start and the ferocity of the tempo manifested itself in Nibali, Rigoberto Urán, Joaquim Rodriguez, Thibaut Pinot, and Jean-Christophe Péraud all being dropped early.

The front group was already considerably thinned by the time Sky hit the front as the gradients rose above 10 per cent on the steepest middle section of the climb. Yet it was Quintana’s teammate Alejandro Valverde who threw the cat among the pigeons, with a double dig that appeared to leave Froome in slight difficulty.

He must have been bluffing, though, as he held on while Contador, van Garderen, Pierre Rolland, Adam Yates, and other members of that 15-strong elite group lost contact. Alone with Quintana and Porte, Froome wasted no time making his move and ploughed up the mountainside to take a stranglehold on the yellow jersey and leave the rest of the field stunned and thoroughly demoralised.

How it unfolded

There were two non-starters, with Ivan Basso (Tinkoff-Saxo) obviously not starting after he announced yesterday he had been diagnosed with testicular cancer. Lars Boom (Astana) headed home due to the flu.

It was no surprise on Bastille day to see a Frenchman on the attack. Pierrick Fédrigo launched a solo escape in the early kilometres and Kenneth Van Bilsen (Cofidis) managed to bridge across after 45km of racing. The pair built a lead of almost quarter of an hour and Van Bilsen took the maximum points on the three fourth category climbs that preceded the summit finish. Fédrigo took the intermediate sprint points at kilometer 124 while the real battle behind among the sprinters was won by André Greipel, who regained the green jersey with his effort.

There were worrying moments when Warren Barguil hit the deck in the feed zone and cradled his shoulder. But the promising Frenchman got back on his bike and made it back into the bunch before dropping to the medical car for some bandaging.

Inside 50km the gap between the break and the peloton really started to tumble, with many GC teams showing interest at the front. By the foot of the final climb the gap stood at less than three minutes and it wasn’t long before the game was up, Fédrigo the last to buckle.

The climb had barely got going when polka-dot jersey wearer Daniel Teklehaimanot (MTN-Qhubeka), Michal Kwiatkowski (Etixx-QuickStep) and Rui Costa (Lampre-Merida) were dropped, and they were soon joined by higher-profile rides like Pinot and Péraud.

Robert Gesink (LottoNL-Jumbo) attacked and Rafael Valls (Lampre) bridged across briefly but faded when Valverde made his moves. Nibali was off the back with 10km to go, joined by Rodriguez and Urán, while up front the bunch began to thin out to less than 15 riders thanks to Sky’s emergence.

Contador was the next big favourite to be dropped inside 7km as Richie Porte and Froome went away with Quintana in tow. Van Garderen then also lost contact and joined Gesink, with Adam Yates (Orica-GreenEdge), Rolland, Geraint Thomas, Tony Gallopin, and Valverde all falling away.

Froome attacked with 6.4km to go and immediately opened a gap on Quintana. The Colombian stayed calm but he was slipping back quickly to half a minute, though he was making up time on his other rivals behind.

The gaps would only get bigger as Froome showed no signs of tiring and produced what might be the defining performance of this Tour de France.

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