Froome on brink of title after edging out Uran on epic climb
Briton extends his lead with fourth-place finish Barguil claims thrilling victory on Col d’izoard
He desperately wanted the stage win, an achievement which has so far eluded him this year. He felt he had the legs to do it. But Chris Froome will have to content himself with the fact that he has all but assured himself of a fourth Tour de France title following an epic 18th stage to the top of the Col d’izoard yesterday.
Barring mishap in today’s 225km run from Embrun in the Alps all the way down to Salon-de-provence near the Mediterranean, or something entirely unexpected in tomorrow’s 22.5km time trial in Marseille, Froome and his Sky team will be swilling champagne on their way into Paris on Sunday, just as they did in 2013, 2015 and 2016.
Froome will be desperate to win tomorrow’s time trial, though. Only six riders (seven if you include Alberto Contador in 2010 before his win was taken away for a doping offence) have won the Tour without claiming a stage victory.
Even if he cannot manage it, though, he said he would have “no regrets”, just as long as he was first into Paris. He said: “Sure, it would have been amazing to have won the stage today, especially on the most iconic mountain in this year’s race. But my goal is to win the Tour.”
Since the route was announced last autumn, the Izoard had been billed as the potential climax to this year’s GC battle and it did not disappoint. Far from it.
The mythical climb, 14.1km of pure pain through a sun-drenched valley, tree-lined switchbacks and, finally, out into the forbidding Casse Déserte – the scree slopes near the summit – was hosting its first summit finish. And it staged a battle fit to decide any Tour de France. Warren Barguil, the Frenchman who has ridden with such panache that he has already assured himself of the polka dot jersey, eventually took line honours, attacking the yellow-jersey group about 8km from the top and chasing down the remainder of the day’s breakaway for a thrilling and utterly deserved victory, by 20sec over Darwin Atapuma.
But the big winner behind was Froome, in fourth, just behind Romain Bardet and just ahead of Rigoberto Uran, his two closest rivals. With the four bonus seconds Bardet picked up for beating Froome to third, the Frenchman moved up to second on the general classification, 23sec behind Froome.
But from Froome’s perspective, that was infinitely preferable to Uran picking up those bonus seconds. The Colombian is a far more dangerous time trialist than Bardet. Uran lost 2sec to Froome and now trails the Briton by 29sec.
“It’s still close,” said Froome, determined not to get ahead of himself. “If everything goes well, I would fancy my chances in the time trial against the other guys. But anything could happen still.”