Tour de France crosses into Switzerland in Stage 16

All of the favourites crossed the finish line together, meaning Froome remains 1min 47sec ahead of second-placed Bauke Mollema at the top of the overall standings.

Froome’s short acceleration had no impact and the group crossed the finish line together, slightly more than three minutes behind stage victor Jarlinson Pantano.

Widely regarded as the best climber in the world, Quintana has failed to put in a single attack of note and even struggled on last Thursday’s climb up Mont Ventoux, losing time to Froome, Mollema and Australia’s Richie Porte.

“It must be demoralising for my rivals to know we’ve got this calibre of rider supporting me, riders who’d be leaders in other teams”, said Froome.

“Sky were very strong yet again and they really made it hard for us”, said Valverde, who rides with Quintana at Movistar.

“I was surprised that we weren’t more attacked out there”, said the 31-year-old Briton.

Pantano, a Colombian rider with the IAM team, posted the most important win of his career after a long breakaway, outsprinting Polish rider Rafal Majka to the finish line.

He said: “I just wanted to see exactly what the state of play was; to see what reaction I get. who would be looking to follow me – [it was] interesting to see Nairo [Quintana] was on my wheel quite quickly – to give me an idea of who may be making a move over the top”.

Sunday’s 160km stage 15 from Bourg-en-Bresse to Culoz was seen as a key opportunity for contenders to make up time on Froome in the fight for yellow given it included six categorised climbs and more than 4,000 metres of climbing. A third-place finisher at the Spanish Vuelta past year, he accelerated in the punishing 8.4-kilometer climb to drop Pantano. “It’s a dream come true”. I’m so grateful and fortunate to have team-mates like him.

Two kilometres from the end the two leaders had 16sec on the chasing pair of Reichenbach and Frenchman Alexis Vuillermoz.

On Sunday, Froome lauded his teammates, repeating that this Sky team is “possibly the strongest” to ever race the Tour. In fact, unlike during his first two Tour wins, Froome 2.0 is not holding back this Tour, attacking when least expected and even running without his bike when necessary.

Back in the pack of favorites, Astana riders moved to the front to set a faster tempo.

Frenchman Bardet’s attack, however, hurt American Tejay van Garderen, who lost 1:28 to the leading riders and slipped from sixth to eighth overall as his hopes of a podium finish in Paris took a serious knock.

Monday’s 209-kilometer (130-mile) stage takes the peloton from Moirans-en-Montagne to Bern in Switzerland.