Stage 19

The road

At the start

Five climbs out of Bourg d'Oisans

Christophe Riblon gave France its first stage of this Tour on the Alpe, and a twenty-second penalty for taking a gel too late left Froome leading Contador by 5:11, Quintana by 5:32 and Kreuziger by 5:44. Today is two hundred and four kilometres and five and a half thousand metres of climbing: the Glandon, the Madeleine, the Tamié, the Épine and the Croix Fry.

How it was won

1. 1164 km to go

   A hard day to stay upright

   Jack Bauer goes face-first into a barbed-wire fence and his Tour ends there. Later, on another descent, Marcel Sieberg goes down with what looks like a broken collarbone. The Alps are not finished with anybody yet.

2. 2121 km to go

   Cavendish attacks on the Madeleine

   On an hors catégorie climb, of all places, the fastest sprinter in the race jumps out of the peloton with Kwiatkowski and Pineau. It is the sort of thing that happens on the nineteenth day of a Tour de France and makes no sense at all until you remember there are three weeks of frustration behind it.

3. 361 km to go

   Hesjedal's day runs out

   Rolland attacks again on the Col de Tamié. Ryder Hesjedal, who has been at the head of the race for a hundred and thirty kilometres, falls back at once and keeps falling — out the back of the peloton and out of the day entirely.

4. 419 km to go

   The sky opens

   Heavy rain drenches the whole race on the Col de la Croix Fry. It does not seem to bother Rui Costa, who attacks out of the chase group, catches a struggling Rolland with nineteen kilometres left, rides with him briefly and then simply leaves him.

5. 513 km to go

   Over the top, and thirteen wet kilometres

   Costa takes the last mountain points of the day and tips into a soaked thirteen-kilometre descent with a minute on Andreas Klöden. Mercifully, the rain eases as the valley comes up.

6. 6At the line

   Costa's second

   Forty-eight seconds over Klöden in Le Grand-Bornand, with Bakelants third. Nine minutes back the peloton settles nothing; Pierre Rolland's day of climbing leaves him one point behind Chris Froome in the mountains classification, with one mountain stage left.

The result