#TDF2015: Vincenzo Nibali saves his Tour – Quintana's last chance today

The Tour in the Alps finally sprang into full life yesterday with Sky and Chris Froome finally put under pressure, while Vincenzo Nibali saved his Tour with a fine solo win. With a late attack Nairo Quintana finally managed to take some time out of Chris Froome and is now 2.38 behind. This sets up an potentially exciting final mountain stage but unless Chris Froome has a bad day it will require an epic ride for Quintana to take 2.39 minutes out of Froome today in the stage that finishes atop l'Alpe d'Huez. Although Nibali took 1.14 back from Froome yesterday he is still 6.44 behind, while Chris gained time (1.12) on both Alberto Contador and Alejandro Valverde. 

Sky will be concerned that their riders appear to be running out of gas at this vital moment. Geraint Thomas had a bad day and came in over 20 minutes down on Nibali and has fallen from 4th place to 15th. Almost the entire Sky Team were dropped on the first climb yesterday and although a number got back on the descent, Froome only had Wouter Poels for support in the final part of the stage. 

The French will have been pleased yesterday with Romain Bardet, Thibaut Pinot and Pierre Rolland all performing well and finishing with the leaders. Rolland made a long bid for a stage victory but couldn't hold onto Nibali on the final climb. Romaine Bardet has strengthened his place as the leading French rider: in 9th place at 14.08, while Rolland is in 10th at 17.27. 

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Stage 20: Modane Valfréjus to l'Alpe d'Huez 110.5 kms

Col de la Croix de Fer

L'Alpe d'Huez

The final showdown is a short 110 kilometre stage with two HC climbs finishing with the famous l'Alpe d'Huez with its hundreds and thousands of spectators lining the hairpin climb to the finishing line. Only Quintana can snatch the Yellow Jersey from Chris Froome. Yesterday he managed to take 32 seconds out of Froome. Will this prove to be too little – too late? Or can Quintana produce an amazing ride today and still win the Tour. It's a very tough ask if Froome doesn't have a bad day. Furthermore Froome as the Yellow Jersey would love to win on L'Alpe d'Huez.

Will Nibali manage to knock Valverde off the podium and take third place? A result that looked highly unlikely until yesterday! Will Bardet stay as the leading Frenchman? We will soon know!  

 

2011 Tour de France: 18th stage Schlecks finally dare, 19th stage short but very tough

The 18th stage from Pinerolo to the Col du Galibier was certainly brutally tough. Andy Schleck finally went for it and produced a great ride to win the stage from an attack 60km from the finish to move him to just 15 seconds away from taking the Yellow Jersey. Again Thomas Voeckler rode well surprising me once more as I predicted yesterday that he would lose it. I'll stop making predictions!

Cadel Evans also did a great ride up the Galibier to limit the lose of time to Andy Schleck and incidentally ensured that Voeckler remained in Yellow. Evans is now at 1.12 behind with Frank Schleck at 1.08. These four are now well over two minutes clear of Damiano Cunego and Ivan Basso both on 3.46. The big losers of the day were the two Spaniards – Alberto Contador and Samuel Sánchez. Both blew up at the top of the Galibier and lost a lot of time. Alberto is now 4.44 down and Sanchez at 5.20.

The pity for Evans was that the chasing bunch wasn't able to rise consistently to reduce the gap between them and Andy Schleck. Indeed the gap went out on the climb up the Col du Lautaret as no one was really prepared to take up the chase. It wasn't until right at the top that Cadel opted to really go for it that the gap started to come down but without assistance it was impossible to bring it right down. Evans reduced the gap by about two and half minutes but still finished 2.15 behind Andy.

More than half the field finished outside the time limit including Mark Cavendish. The Tour organisers decided to keep all the riders in the race but docked Mark 20 points from his Green Jersey total, so he is now only 15 points ahead of Rojas who just managed to cross the finishing line in time.

Stage 19: Mondane to L'Alpe d'Huez 109.5km

This is a very short but again brutally tough stage. Back over the Galibier but this time going up the harder northern side and heading down to Bourg d'Oisans and the famous L'Alpe d'Huez with its 21 steep corners. The Schlecks will want to take further time out of Cadel Evans. I'm sure Thomas Voeckler would love to hold on to Yellow at the end of this stage. Can Contador find the legs to attack on the Alpe and regain time?

If the favourites race hard all the way it is going to be very difficult for many riders to make the cut as the stage is so short. Mark Cavendish has to beat the time limit otherwise he will be in real trouble.

The Alpe is an amazing place to watch the Tour. We went there once in 1986 and saw Bernard Hainault and Greg Lemond ride up together. We had hoped to see Robert Millar doing well but he had an off day and was well down.