Froome closes in on Tour hat-trick

SALON-DE-PROVENCE: Edvald Boasson Hagen ended a run of near misses to take stage 19 of the Tour de France yesterday, as Chris Froome moved towards overall victory.

Britain’s Froome looks certain to stand on the Paris podium in the yellow jersey for the third year in a row.

The 32-year-old maintained his 23-second lead over Romain Bardet ahead of today’s penultimate stage - a time trial in Marseille.

Norway’s Boasson Hagen finished runner-up in two stages and third in two more. This time the Dimension Data rider beat Sunweb’s Nikias Arndt by five seconds after the pair out-foxed others by going around a roundabout, rather then left like everyone else.

“I was surprised they all went left but sometimes you just follow the guy in front,” he said.

There was little going on behind a day-long 20-man escape group with Froome’s Team Sky colleagues forming a white wedge to keep their leader out of trouble.

With a 23-second lead over Bardet and 29 on Rigoberto Uran he wasn’t going to take chances with Paris in sight.

Barring a crash today, Froome will claim a fourth Tour title in five years. However, he is still not relaxing.

“It’s still all to race for, there’s still only 30 seconds between the top three,” Froome said. “It had been full gas for two days in the Alps so grateful it was a less crazy stage today and we could sit on the wheels a bit and recover some energy.”

Sunweb’s Michael Matthews virtually wrapped up the green points jersey and just needs to finish safely in Paris to become the third Australian to win the category. Matthews’s team mate Warren Barguil also just needs to finish in Paris to win the king of the mountains title.