Stage 18

The road

At the start

The queen stage, and the Alpe twice

Froome's time trial win moved Contador to second at 4:34 and Kreuziger to third at 4:51, with Mollema falling to fourth. Today is the hardest day of the race: the Col de Manse straight out of Gap, the Rampe du Motty, the Col d'Ornon — and then Alpe d'Huez twice, with the narrow, unfamiliar Col de Sarenne descent in between them.

How it was won

1. 1158 km to go

   Saxo attack from kilometre zero

   Saxo-Tinkoff spend the Col de Manse trying to put men up the road for later, and every Sky rider has to answer — including Chris Froome, who has to chase Contador himself thirteen kilometres into the queen stage.

2. 2127 km to go

   The second wave

   The break is four minutes clear up the Rampe du Motty when Saxo go again: Paulinho and Roche get away. They never reach the front group, and they will be back in the peloton before the first ascent of the Alpe is over.

3. 350 km to go

   Up the Alpe for the first time

   Eight minutes for the nine leaders through Bourg d'Oisans, and on the twenty-one bends Van Garderen and Riblon ease away from the rest of them. Behind, Sky's grip loosens only for Voeckler, Rolland, Nieve, Poels and a resurgent Andy Schleck.

4. 441 km to go

   Down the Sarenne

   Kreuziger goes to the front over the top and opens a gap; Contador jumps after his own teammate. Twenty seconds on a narrow, technical descent nobody in the race has raced before — and then the road widens and it is gone.

5. 55 km to go

   The gel that cost twenty seconds

   Second time up the Alpe, five kilometres from the line, and the yellow jersey starts signalling for his team car. Porte stops pacing him, drops back, and returns with a gel and a bottle inside the last twenty kilometres. The commissaires will take twenty seconds off both of them tonight.

6. 62 km to go

   Riblon, on the right-hand side

   Dropped by Van Garderen on the early ramps, forty-five seconds down and riding at his own pace, Christophe Riblon has spent the whole second ascent taking it back a few metres at a time. With two kilometres left he arrives on the American's wheel, does not hesitate, and goes past on his right. Van Garderen, magnificent all day, has nothing at all left to give.

7. 7At the line

   France, at last, on the Alpe

   Riblon is celebrating before the final left-hander, and the noise on Alpe d'Huez is something else. It is France's first stage of the hundredth Tour de France, and it comes on the greatest climb the race owns.

The result