Stage 18

The road

At the start

The queen stage, to the Galibier

Boasson Hagen won at Pinerolo and Thomas Voeckler rode off the road on the descent, losing time he cannot afford: Cadel Evans is 1:18 behind him now, Fränk Schleck 1:22, Andy Schleck 2:36. Today is the queen stage and the reason this Tour was drawn the way it was — the Col Agnel at 2,744 metres, then the Izoard, then a finish at the top of the Galibier, a hundred years after the pass first appeared in the race.

How it was won

1. 194 km to go

   Back into France at 2,744 metres

   The Col Agnel is the roof of the day and the border with it, and Leopard Trek are already driving the pace at the front of the break and the front of the peloton at the same time.

2. 255 km to go

   Schleck goes on the Izoard

   With fifty-five kilometres and two more passes still to ride, Andy Schleck attacks alone out of a small group containing every favourite in the race. It is a distance nobody attacks from any more, and nobody follows. Saxo Bank push Navarro to the front, Euskaltel come up beside them, and the Tour de France becomes a chase.

3. 346 km to go

   The descent he was not supposed to have

   Schleck's reputation is that he loses mountains going down them. Today he goes down the Izoard flat out, in total contrast to everything he did in the Pyrenees, with Maxime Monfort dropping back out of the break to wait for him.

4. 430 km to go

   Leader on the road

   Schleck and Monfort join forces with Roche, Devenyns and Silin and catch Iglinsky with thirty kilometres left. The gap puts him in the virtual lead of the Tour de France, and the yellow-jersey group has long since stopped chasing in any serious way.

5. 517 km to go

   Monfort, spent

   The Belgian has done almost all the work in front and burns out with seventeen kilometres to go. Three men are left, with nearly four minutes, and behind them Contador finally moves to the head of his group and shares the work with Evans.

6. 68 km to go

   Alone on the Galibier

   Eight kilometres of the climb left and 3:50 in hand, with Iglinsky and Roche sitting on because helping him would be helping him win the Tour. On one of the first curves Schleck turns on the power and rides away from them into the crowd.

7. 7At the line

   The summit, a hundred years on

   He suffers over the last kilometres and hangs on, finishing at the top of the Galibier a century after the pass first appeared in the Tour de France. Fränk sprints in for second and Evans third — and behind them Thomas Voeckler crosses the line in something close to ecstasy, the yellow jersey still on his back for one more day.

The result