Descent keeps French ace first

GC STANDINGS

COLOMBIAN Nairo Quintana sailed away for a solo victory yesterday, but it was Julian Alaphilippe’s breathless descent that kept him in the yellow jersey after a rugged Stage 18 of the Tour de France.

On a day where Tasmanian Richie Porte kept pace with the Tour leaders — later lamenting his reputation didn’t allow him to get into any breakaway groups — Quintana attacked the remnants of the day-long breakaway on the Col du Galibier to claim a morale-boosting victory.

Quintana finished 1min 35sec in front of runner-up Romain Bardet and 2min 28sec before Alexey Lutsenko in third. But it was behind that trio that the real drama unfolded. Alaphilippe was dropped by the yellow jersey group 1km from the top of the Galibier, but after cresting the summit he hauled in a 20-second deficit with a high-speed descending masterclass to the finish.

Team Ineos’s Egan Bernal had already slipped away from that group, however, and gained 32 seconds on Alaphilippe to move to second overall.

In a nailbiting scenario, Alaphilippe is now hanging on to a 90-second lead over Bernal on 1. Julian Alaphilippe (Fr) 75:18:49. 2. Egan Bernal (Colo) 1min 30sec behind. 3. Geraint Thomas (GB) 1:35. 4. Steven Kruijswijk (Neth) 1:47. 5. Thibaut Pinot (Fr) 1:50. 6. Emanuel Buchmann (Ger) 2:14. 7. Nairo Quintana (Col) 3:54. 8. Mikel Landa (Sp) 4:54. 9. Rigoberto Uran (Col) 5:33. 10. Alejandro Valverde (Sp) 5:58. 11. Richie Porte (Aust) 6:30. general classification with two huge summit finish days in the Alps to come before Paris.

The peloton was put through the wringer on Stage 18, with the 208km trip from Embrun featuring a whopping 5212m of climbing.

“It was a hard day. It was ‘on’ there on the Col d’Izoard and the Galibier — it was probably the queen stage so it’s nice to have that one finished,” Porte said.

“I felt pretty good until Bernal attacked. I was dagging off the back a little bit there over the top, but I was lucky to come back on the downhill and it got a bit dicey there with the rain, but it was all good. Tomorrow is another really hard day, high altitude and I think this race is far from done.”