Le Tour traversed the French Pyrénées mountains in stages 10, 11, and 12, and began to define the race for the overall win in Paris.
Stage 10: Tarbe – La Pierre –Saint-Martin
Chris Froome stamped his dominance upon the Tour with a merciless display of climbing brilliance as he attacked the field on the first major summit finish at La Pierre-Saint-Martin, putting more than a minute into third-placed Nairo Quintana (Movistar), who was beaten for second on the stage by Froome's Sky teammate, Australian Richie Porte.
Quintana was the only rider with Froome and Porte when the attack was made, but although he slipped back to lose just over a minute, he did enough to maintain his podium position, a touch over 3 minutes behind Froome overall.
The pace set by Froome's Team Sky was ferocious enough to damage the hopes of big-name contenders Contador and Nibali – the Spaniard lost another 2:50, while defending champion Nibali lost nearly 5 minutes on the climb, putting him 7 minutes behind overall and seemingly without any chance of defending his title.
BikeRoar's early pick, American Teejay Van Garderen of BMC Racing, was once again able to minimize the damage and come out relatively unscathed, finishing the day in 10th position and consolidating his second place in the overall General Classification.
"Not my best day ever," van Garderen admitted, "but certainly not my worst. I'm in a solid position, I feel good and I'm definitely happy with how we're sitting."
Things were not as positive in the Tinkoff-Saxo camp, however, with Contador left licking his wounds.
"I felt terrible today," he said. "I couldn't breathe and my legs just weren't responding. It really didn't go well."
The ferocity of the tempo also burned off big names Rigoberto Uran, Joaquim Rodriguez, Jean-Christophe Peraud, and temperamental French bad boy Thibaut Pinot.
Stage 11: Pau –Cauterets – Vallée de Saint-Savin
After the disappointment surrounding Alberto Contador's sub-par performance so far, the Tinkoff-Saxo team had a better day on Stage 11 when Rafal Majka, last year's winner of the polka-dot climber's jersey, attacked on the majestic Col du Tourmalet for a solo victory.
Majka attacked after riding for hours in an 8-man breakaway group, then increased his advantage on the long descent off the mountain before finishing it off on the final third-category climb to Cauterets.
Dan Martin of Cannondale-Garmin put in the ride of the tour so far (although Chris Froome fans may disagree), producing a mighty solo effort to bridge from the main peloton to the break on the Col d'Aspin. He was rewarded in the end with a gallant second place behind Majka, while German champion Emanuel Buchmann (Bora-Argon 18) was the next best of the fragmented chase group and rounded out the top three.
The excitement of the summit had little effect on the overall General Classification, except to highlight the woes of Vincenzo Nibali and Thibaut Pinot, who both lost more ground on the leaders.
But it was Astana who lost out themselves as Nibali lost contact with the yellow jersey group late on and conceded yet more valuable seconds.
Stage 12: Lannemezan – Plateau de Beille
Joaquim Rodriguez of Team Katusha made amends for two dismal days in the Pyrenees by soloing to his second stage victory of the Tour de France. The brilliant but inconsistent Spaniard surged to the head of the race on the final climb after making the day's breakaway, accelerating away from Astana's Jakob Fuglsang and powering to victory.
Rodriguez looked to be in fabulous form as he crushed his rivals on the Mur de Huy to take out Stage 3, but he has been woeful ever since – especially yesterday on the Col du Tourmalet, where he crashed and conceded 10 minutes to the main group.
"I thought I had no chance today," he admitted later, "but I know this climb better than nearly anyone, so I attacked at the right place and it paid off."
Again there was no real movement in the General Classification, with Froome still having a stranglehold on the yellow jersey and Teejay van Garderen cleverly hanging onto second place.
The battle for the sprinter's green jersey was a much more closely contested affair. In the only intermediate sprint of the day, André Greipel clawed his way back to within two points of Tinkoff-Saxo's Peter Sagan. John Degenkolb of Giant-Alpecin controversially edged out Mark Cavendish for second place, with one of Giant's lead-out train seemingly deliberately blocking the fast-finishing Brit. n's lead, although narrow, should be safe from the German as Greipel will probably struggle in the unforgiving Alps.
Looking Ahead...
Here's how the General Classification looks now:
There may be some shuffling between those placed 7-10, but it seems the top 6, and especially the top 3, have cemented their positions. Froome is totally dominant, and van Garderen seems to getting stronger and more mature as the Tour drags on. There is a very good chance that Valverde and Quintana, both of team Movistar, will swap places, and that Alberto Contador will dig deep and fight his way back up toward the podium.
This Tour has really become a tale of two teams, and while BMC were brilliant in the Team Time Trial and have provided solid support for van Garderen in the mountains, nothing can come close to the bloody-minded, near-suicidal protection that the Team Sky bodyguards of Thomas, Porte, and Wouter Poels offer Chris Froome. Van Garderen has been clever enough to let the Sky team dictate the pace, and has then ridden their coat-tails home on each stage. This is better than anyone else has managed to do, but it's not going to win him the Tour. If anyone has the courage and ability to attack Froome it's him – he just needs to get Froome away from his protection detail first.
Stay tuned, because the next few days will be the ones that decide the outcome of the entire race.
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