Stage 10

The road

How it was won

1. 143 km to go

   A quarter of an hour up the road

   Fédrigo, away since the opening kilometres on Bastille Day, takes the sprint at Trois Villes with Van Bilsen for company and almost fifteen minutes in hand. Behind them Greipel wins the sprinters' fight and takes the green jersey back.

2. 233 km to go

   The last little climb before the big one

   Van Bilsen mops up the points on the last of three fourth-category bumps. The GC teams have crowded the front now and the gap is crumbling towards three minutes.

3. 315 km to go

   Movistar light the fuse

   Fifteen kilometres at 7.4 per cent to La Pierre-Saint-Martin, and Movistar go to the front from the very bottom. The climb has barely begun and Nibali, Urán, Rodríguez, Pinot and Péraud are already gone out the back.

4. 411 km to go

   Valverde throws the cat among the pigeons

   Where the gradient tips past ten per cent it is Quintana's own lieutenant who tests the yellow jersey, digging twice and appearing, briefly, to leave Froome in difficulty.

5. 56 km to go

   Froome detonates the Tour

   Six point four kilometres from the summit Richie Porte swings over and Chris Froome goes, and the race for yellow is effectively over before the first week of mountains is out. Quintana stays calm and still loses half a minute in a handful of pedal strokes; behind them the best climbers in the world are scattered down the mountain in ones and twos.

6. 6At the line

   More than a minute, and a Tour reshaped

   Froome crosses alone with Porte second and Quintana beaten into third. Contador concedes 2:50, Nibali 4:50 and, with it, any hope of defending his title.

The result