Top ten shakeup but Froome avoids trouble

On a stage which finished with a ride over the Col de Joux Plane in the driving rain followed by a tricky descent down into Morzine, the potential there was for all kinds of drama, especially after what we had seen in the rain just twenty-four hours before, but as it was, the mayhem failed to unfold and while the the top ten had a few names drop out and a few new ones come in, the top five remained unchanged as Chris Froome kept his cool, avoided trouble and is now a short procession into Paris away from being crowned a three time winner of the Tour de France.

All the major action was reserved for the battle to win the stage. That is if you discount the anticipation of someone taking a risk on the descent to try and unsettle Froome behind. But up front it was Vincenzo Nibali out looking to take a consolation victory away from a Tour in which he arrived as the Giro d'Italia champion but very much out of form and using the Tour to build his condition ahead of a Gold medal bid in Rio in a few weeks time. He made the last major move on the Joux Plane from a large group of stage hunters, made up of many of the same names we have seen day after day trying to take some glory from this Tour, and it looked to be the winning move by the Shark. That was until the pair of Jon Izagirre and Jarlinson Pantano worked their way back to him in time for the summit.

You may have noticed that up until this point in the Tour that there had been no Italian or Spanish stage winners, a rare sight indeed, and only until yesterday, when Romain Bardet won, were the French also looking for a stage. The globalisation of the peloton had never been clearer. So no shock then to see the Spaniard in Izagirre and the Italian in Nibali trying to put things to rights, with Pantano looking for his second stage of this Tour alone.

At this point you'd have staked a lot on Nibali to win from here. The descent was tricky and it was wet and Nibali is famous for his descending abilities. The only problem being the fact he crashed yesterday alongside Chris Froome and perhaps that was weighing on his mind. That and not wanting to repeat it and perhaps injure himself this time...not with Rio looming and all this effort to build form towards it. The form has been coming, but coming slowly and anytime we've seen Nibali off the front in one of these large groups in the mountains, he has failed to flatter.

And so it was this time when Izagirre got into his tuck and started to take a few risks through the corners and the gap began to open. Nibali's heart wasn't in it and his head calculated the risk-reward ratio and decided not to go after him. That may be unfair to Izagirre though. He's not a general classification man so we don't know a lot about his descending skills, but growing up in Spain he was a cyclo-cross champion and by all accounts no slouch when it comes to going downhill. He put all those abilities to good use here and perhaps Nibali couldn't respond to it; the Astana rider coming home 42 seconds down. Then again, the Italian was also dropped from Pantano who came in at 19sec.

So at the finish, not only did Izagirre throw his arms in the air to celebrate his first Tour de France stage win, but he did so to celebrate the first stage win of this years race for Spain...and just in time. Italy will have to go without baring something unusual tomorrow.

All that was left was the safe negotiation of the descent by the Froome group. It's been a long old slog to get this far and perhaps it's beginning to tell on the legs of everyone who has fought to contend for a high placing. Perhaps a sign of where the sport is at in the second decade of the 21st century. Some people have criticised the lack of dramatic all-guns blazing attacks, but they've also begged for a clean Tour, and rarely does both go hand-in-hand. But more on that another time.

Tired legs, tired minds and with a hard climb and a wet descent, nobody seemed up for the risk. We had seen Richie Porte and Adam Yates both lose a little time yesterday, so thay may well have been on their limit...especially Yates who started the day just 19sec off the podium and still didn't fancy it today. Then there was Fabio Aru, he had put his Astana team on the front early and must have been sizing up his chances, but he cracked spectacularly with a food bonk and trailed home 13min 20sec behind the yellow jersey and plummeted from 6th to 13th overall, joining Bauke Mollema as a late casualty of a top ten placing. Capatilising was Joaqium Rodriguez (up to 7th) and Roman Kreuziger (up to 10th), both of whom had got in that big early break and survived to finish in front of what was left of the GC group.

So only Paris to go for Froome. He's escaped the Alps with one crash that resulted in a final climb on a teammates bike, and a stage victory in the time-trial. He came into the Alps leading the Tour by 1min 47sec over Mollema; he leaves with a 4min 5sec advantage over Romain Bardet in second, the Frenchman who himself was 6th when the Alps began.

General classification after 20 stages:

1. Chris Froome (Sky) in 86h21'40"

2. Romain Bardet (AG2R La Mondiale) @ 4'05"

3. Nairo Quintana (Movistar) @ 4'21"

4. Adam Yates (Orica BikeExchange) @ 4'42"

5. Richie Porte (BMC) @ 5'17"

6. Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) @ 6'16"