Quintana takes stage
July 20: Chris Froome retained his big race lead on Saturday to ensure that he will become Britain’s second successive Tour de France champion after Bradley Wiggins.
Only an accident or other freak mishap on Sunday’s largely ceremonial final ride to Paris could stop Froome from winning the 100th Tour.
Froome finished third in a dramatic Stage 20 to the ski station of Annecy-Semnoz in the Alps that decided the other podium placings.
Nairo Quintana from Colombia won the stage and moved up to second overall.
Joaquim Rodriguez from Spain rode in 17 seconds behind Quintana. He moved up to third overall.
Froome’s lead is more than 5 minutes over both those two.
Alberto Contador, who had been second at the start of the day, struggled on the final climb and dropped off the podium.
The 125-kilometre (78-mile) trek was the last of four successive stages in the Alps and the final significant obstacle Froome needed to overcome before Sunday’s usually relaxed ride to the finish on the Champs-Elysees in Paris. That 133-kilometre (82-mile) jaunt starts in Versailles.
Froome’s dominance at this Tour was such that this victory could very well be the first of several. At 28, he is entering peak years for a bike racer. He proved at this Tour that he excels both in climbs and time trials — skills essential for those who want to win cycling’s premier race. He also handled with poise and aplomb questions about doping in cycling and suspicions about the strength of his own performances. He insisted that he raced clean. Froome first took the race lead and the yellow jersey that goes with it on Stage 8, when he won the climb to the Ax-3 Domaines ski station in the Pyrenees. On Sunday’s Stage 21, he will wear the yellow jersey for the 13th straight day.
Froome told French television that when he passed the sign showing 2 kilometres to go on Saturday’s final climb, “for the first time I realised that it was almost won.”
“It was hard today,” he said after race.
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