Tour de France: Nibali redeemed with La Toussuire win

Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) put another complexion on his Tour de France by soloing to victory atop La Toussuire on stage 19, while Nairo Quintana (Movistar) infused a modicum of suspense to the battle for the yellow jersey by snatching back 30 seconds from Chris Froome (Sky) when he danced clear on the final haul to the line.

The third of four successive stages in the Alps was to prove Froome’s most trying day of the Tour to date, and the auguries were ill from the outset. An early onslaught from Movistar, Tinkoff-Saxo and Astana on the opening climb, the Col du Chaussy, left Froome largely isolated, and though his Sky guard regrouped in the valley that followed, it was a sign of things to come.

Froome’s teammate Geraint Thomas, fourth as the day began, was distanced definitively on the Col de la Croix de Fer and would end up losing more than 22 minutes to slip to 15th overall. Six kilometres from the summit, Froome himself was placed on the back foot when he had to stop after a stone lodged in his rear brake, prompting Nibali – who turned twice to look at Froome – to take flight alone, with some 62 kilometres still to race, after his Astana team had laid the groundwork on the lower slopes.

“We wanted to make the race hard on the Croix de Fer, and the team did that,” said Nibali, who denied that he had attacked expressly because Froome was in difficulty, though the yellow jersey saw the incident differently.

“He did see what he was doing, I’m pretty sure he looked around, saw I was in trouble and attacked. In my opinion you don’t do that to the race leader, it’s not sportsmanlike,” Froome complained afterwards.

Nibali closed to within a minute of earlier escapee Pierre Rolland (Europcar) by the summit of the Croix de Fer and had more than 50 seconds in hand on the yellow jersey group, and he would continue to make up ground on the long, sinuous descent that followed. The Sicilian eventually caught Rolland just over the top of the penultimate ascent, the Col de Mollard, where they had an advantage of 1:47 on the Froome-Quintana group.

Despite a scare on a tight right-hand bend midway down the descent, Nibali and Rolland reached the base of La Toussuire with that buffer largely intact. With 16 kilometres of climbing remaining, last year’s Tour winner lifted himself from the saddle and eased clear of Rolland, never to be seen again.

Behind, Wouter Poels was the only teammate Froome had for company in the yellow jersey group, where José Herrada took up the pace-making duties in a bid to set up Quintana’s long-anticipated assault on the final climb. When Herrada swung over, however, it was Alberto Contador’s Tinkoff-Saxo teammate Rafal Majka who took up the reins, and his tempo would discourage any attacks until the upper reaches of the climb.

With a shade under six kilometres remaining, shortly after Poels had been dropped, Quintana finally sensed his opportunity, and jumped clear of the yellow jersey group. Froome was quick to marshal a response, first attempting to close the gap with Contador and Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) on his wheel, before then proceeding to give chase alone.

Initially, at least, Froome succeeded in limiting his losses well, keeping Quintana’s led pegged at around the 15-second mark, but the relentlessness of the Colombian’s rhythm began to tell in the final three kilometres, as he nudged his advantage out towards the 30-second mark.

Out in front, meanwhile, Nibali was unassailable and turning the pedals with the same facility that carried him to such a dominant Tour victory a year ago. Rarely the most expressive in victory or defeat, the intensity of Nibali’s victory salute underlined just how his pride had been dented in the Pyrenees.

“It was a huge effort but this was an important stage and I dedicate it to the people who were close to me after a dark first week,” said Nibali, who is now 4th overall, 6:44 down on Froome but just 1:19 off the podium. “Tomorrow it’s the Alpe d’Huez, let’s hope for the best.”

Quintana crossed the line in second place, 44 seconds down, while Froome came home in third, 1:14 behind. The Briton had the consolation of putting more than a minute into Contador and Valverde, who finished together, 2:26 down, and he declared himself pleased to have limited the damage.

“Obviously Quintana put in a real big attack there, I chose to ride my own tempo and try and limit my losses stay within myself and keep a bit of energy for tomorrow,” Froome said.

For his part, Quintana admitted to a degree of disappointment with his bounty at day’s end. It was the first time Froome’s lead has dropped below three minutes since before the race hit the mountains, but with just one chance remaining, he still trails by 2:38.

“I was hoping to get a bigger gap on Froome, and to be honest it wasn’t as much as I wanted, he fought back harder than I thought was likely,” he said. “I’ll go on fighting and see what we can do. It was so fast on the climb, there’s no way I could get away before. I’ll keep on fighting though.”

Thomas losses ground

The profile put one in mind of the famous stage to Bagnères-de-Luchon two years ago, when a flurry of early attacks left Froome critically isolated for much of the day, and there was little surprise when Astana, Tinkoff-Saxo and Movistar opted to tear a page from the same playbook and run it on the very first climb, the Col du Chaussy, which brought the peloton away from the start in Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne.

Contador, Valverde and Nibali were all among the riders to go on the offensive on the category 1 climb, where Thomas was already placed under server duress and the peloton was left in shards scattered across the mountainside. After Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha) led over the summit, however, there was a realignment of sorts in the valley that followed, before a 21-man break featuring Rolland, Romain Bardet (Ag2r-La Mondiale) and Rigoberto Uran (Etixx-QuickStep) managed to forge clear ahead of the Croix de Fer.

“It was really hard, with the start uphill like that you knew it was going to be really hard,” said Bauke Mollema (Trek), who won roll with the punches to move up to 8th overall by close of business. “It was and down all day. It was a big fight for everybody not just for us but for the guys at the back fighting for the time limit.”

Once on the Col de la Croix de Fer, Astana laid out their stall in support of Nibali, with Michele Scarponi putting in much of the groundwork. While there will be inevitable polemic over the rights and wrongs of attacking while the maillot jaune had one foot on the ground, Nibali’s courage in going on the offensive from such distance made a welcome change from the more cautious racing that had taken hold by the third day in the Pyrenees last week.

Froome, however, recovered quickly from his mechanical problem, pedalling with his usual hurried cadence and jutting elbows to bridge back up to Quintana et al. The Colombian wouldn’t leave his sight until the final ramps of La Toussuire, and Froome knows that a repeat display on Alpe d’Huez on Saturday will be enough to land him a second Tour victory.

“It’s going to be very full on. I’m actually quite looking forward to it, the most iconic stage of this year’s Tour - it’s going to be epic out there,” Froome said. “It would be an absolute dream [to win on the Alpe] but I’ve got to keep up with a little Colombian first.”

And amid his initial despondency at failing to put more time into Froome, Quintana struck a defiant note as he left the mixed zone on Friday evening. “I’ll try again tomorrow from further out,” he said. “Let’s see how strong he is then.”

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