Pinot wins 20th Tour de France stage

Froome, champion in 2013, responded to limit his losses to just 80 seconds as France’s Thibaut Pinot won the stage.

Pinot and Hesjedal then attacked and the Frenchman, who got help on the way from his FDJ team mate Geniez, powered to his second Tour stage win after claiming his first on his debut in 2012.

“It’s unreal – we’ve been up against everything in this year’s Tour”, said Britain’s man in the Yellow Jersey last night. “I enjoyed it as much as I could”.

When asked if Quintana was stronger on the climbs, and how much the stage 2 echelons affected the race, Froome demurred.

“Everyone dreamt for a year about a battle between at least four big names, and there was nothing but a duel”, Prudhomme lamented. “That’s the 1:30 that cost me the Tour de France”.

“But let me set the record straight, I haven’t had to apply for special medication, no TUE (therapeutic use exemption)”.

Froome said that he received verification that the Italian’s actions were deliberate.

In their trail were Valverde, fourth at 1m 38s, Froome, fifth at the same time, Frenchman Pierre Rolland (Europcar), sixth at 1m 41s, and Porte, seventh in 2m 11s.

He hadn’t previously indicated he had health issues, but said he’s not the only one under the weather. I’ve done tough climbs in the last few years, and that was right up there.

The 2013 champion managed to regroup however and he only finished 80 seconds behind the 25-year-old to maintain an overall lead of 72 seconds going into the final stage from Sevres to Paris. But it only cut his overall deficit roughly in half. “We got a little time, but it wasn’t enough”.

Only at the end, in a final sprint at the ski station itself, did Froome show his top speed.

Despite the gain, however, Quintana will nearly certainly now settle for second place.

“I think I lost the Tour during the first week”, said the Colombian who was 1:30 adrift of the Briton in a flat second stage in the Netherlands.

Rather than demoralising the team, Froome argued such incidents like the spitting, or when he was dowsed with urine earlier in the race, had created greater unity.

Alexandre Geniez attacked from the lead group with 6km remaining in the climb while back in the yellow jersey group, a high tempo from Astana was shelling many riders.

“There no word to describe it”, said Pinot, who crashed in a winding downhill in Stage 17 as the race entered the Alps. “I felt I was dying a thousand deaths but being with my team-mates meant I had something left for the final kilometre when I was on my own”.

Thibaut Pinot won Saturday’s Stage 20, the third French victory of this Tour.

Chris Froome effectively sealed a second Tour de France title despite Nairo Quintana’s nerve-shredding ascent of Alpe-d’Huez.

Pinot, who didn’t live up to his third GC place of 2014, took a famous victory, while Nairo Quintana (Colombia/Movistar) ripped back over a minute on Chris Froome (Great Britain/Sky) by coming runner-up on the day.

But Quintana ran out of road and trailed by 1min 12secs ahead of Sunday’s ceremonial finish in Paris, where Froome will stand atop the podium for a second time. He again will win the white jersey as the Tour’s best young rider.

Potentially rowdy crowds lined the winding, and on Saturday, windy, route up to the famed Alpe d’Huez, which features 21 switchbacks and incomparable views of mountains and valleys. In the 20th stage, he salvaged something from this race by gritting his teeth through droves of fans and holding off Quintana.

Froome has one more day in the mountains for the last competitive stage, which ends with the 21 hairpins of the infamous L’Alpe d’Huez.