Shark of Messina poised to rejoice

25 July 2014 - 02:13 By Julia Beffon
subscribe Just R20 for the first month. Support independent journalism by subscribing to our digital news package.
Subscribe now

Race leader Vincenzo Nibali stamped his class on the Tour de France yesterday, catching and accelerating past Mikel Nieve, the last of a long breakaway group, 8km from the finish at Hautacam to win his fourth stage of the year.

Nibali's Astana had kept the breakaway at a manageable time gap up the Col de Tourmalet, the iconic mountain of the Pyrenees, but once the road tipped upwards for the last time, he stormed off on his own to open his lead to 7min 10 sec.

Barring a crash in today's transitional 19th stage to Bergerac, or calamity in tomorrow's individual time trial, the Shark of Messina will celebrate in Paris after one of the most unpredictable tours in recent memory.

Behind Nibali in the general classification, however, Movistar's Alejandro Valverde cracked on the final climb and fell from second overall to fourth by finishing 10th at Hautacam.

Valverde was overtaken by the French pair of FDJ's Thibaut Pinot and Jean-Christophe Péraud of AG2R, who finished second and fourth on the stage.

The Frenchmen are separated by just 16 seconds and, with Peraud potentially a better time triallist, the lower steps on the podium in Paris are not yet decided.

But they cannot let the battle for national honour consume them as BMC's young American, Teejay van Garderen, excellent against the clock, lurks in fifth overall.

Poland's Rafal Majka of Tinkoff-Saxo, freed to race for himself after team leader Alberto Contador withdrew, clinched the King of the Mountains' polka dot jersey by coming home third.

Spaniard Nieve tried to rescue something out of the 2014 race for Team Sky, who had seen Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome wear the maillot jaune on the Champs-Elysees for the past two years.

Nieve and Blel Kadri of AG2R held a four-minute lead over the 2100m Col de Tourmalet, but Nieve could not hold off the attack from Nibali at the end and faded like all of Sky's hopes since Froome crashed out in the first week.

Valverde used the descent of the Tourmalet to try to eke out a few seconds over the descent but, despite having many team-mates around him, he could not maintain the effort to Hautacam.

To compound Movistar's misery, Valverde's team-mate, José Joaquín Rojas Gil, was disqualified from the race just before the start of the climb up to Hautacam.

Race officials said he spent too long sheltering behind a car.

OVERALL STANDINGS

1 Vincenzo Nibali 80hr 45min 45sec

2 Thibaut Pinot +7min 10sec

3 Jean Christophe Peraud +7:23

4 Alejandro Valverde +7:25

5 Romain Bardet +9:27

6 Tejay van Garderen +11:34

7 Bauke Mollema +13:56

8 Laurens ten Dam +14:15

9 Leopold König +14:37

10 Haimar Zubeldia +16:25

subscribe Just R20 for the first month. Support independent journalism by subscribing to our digital news package.
Subscribe now