Stage 10

The road

At the start

Out of the rest day, up the Grand Colombier

Besançon did exactly what everyone said it would: Bradley Wiggins leads Cadel Evans by 1:53, his own team-mate Chris Froome by 2:07 and Vincenzo Nibali by 2:23. Nibali spent the rest day telling anybody who asked that he intends to attack. Today gives him somewhere to do it — the Col du Grand Colombier, seventeen kilometres of climbing new to the Tour, forty kilometres from the line.

How it was won

1. 1145 km to go

   Fifty kilometres of attacking

   The flag drops on a frenzy — Sagan, Grivko and Lemoine first away, two dozen riders eventually clear, 49.8 kilometres covered in the first hour. Only when the road tilts does the peloton let go, and then it hands the break seven minutes at once.

2. 243 km to go

   Scarponi blows the break apart

   Seventeen kilometres of the Grand Colombier, and on the steepest ramps Michele Scarponi rides four men off his wheel — himself, Sánchez, Devenyns and Voeckler left in front. Behind, Van den Broeck attacks in the last five hundred metres of the climb, takes Rolland with him and thirty-two seconds off the favourites; Nibali goes over the top and throws himself down the descent, exactly as he said he would on the rest day.

3. 321 km to go

   Voeckler collects

   Frustrated at not being able to shake the other three, Thomas Voeckler settles for taking maximum mountain points at every summit — the Grand Colombier, and now the Richemond as well.

4. 410 km to go

   Voigt descends into them

   Jens Voigt comes flying off the Richemond and joins the four leaders with ten kilometres left, then attacks them before he has caught his breath. Voeckler chases him down. Then he chases the next one down, and the one after that.

5. 52 km to go

   Voeckler goes at 1500 metres

   Devenyns is up the road, Voigt is chasing him, and with a kilometre and a half left Voeckler accelerates away from Sánchez and Scarponi and is on and past both leaders within seconds.

6. 6At the line

   Europcar's Tour, rescued

   The last kilometre into Bellegarde-sur-Valserine drags upwards and must feel endless, but nobody behind him gets close. Voeckler takes the stage and the mountains jersey, and turns a wasted Tour for his team into a good one in a single afternoon.

The result