Tour de France: Chris Froome keeps lead as Romain Bardet wins stage 18

Contador, Nibali and Quintana all fail in bids to regain time

By Matt Westby

Friday 24 July 2015 00:02, UK

Chris Froome moved a step closer to Tour de France victory by retaining his lead on a mountainous 18th stage won by breakaway rider Romain Bardet.

Froome (Team Sky) was once again forced on to the defensive as Nairo Quintana (Movistar), Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo) and Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) all launched attacks on the race's second day in the Alps, but each of them were chased down and all of the favourites crossed the finish line in St-Jean-de-Maurienne together.

It was another impressive display of resilience from Froome and he consequently remains 3min 10sec ahead of second-placed Quintana and 4min 9sec in front of third-placed Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) in the general classification.

Geraint Thomas (Team Sky) stays 6min 34sec back in fourth, while Contador remains 6min 40sec down.

Bardet (Ag2r-La Mondiale) formed part of the day’s 29-man escape group but attacked alongside Winner Anacona (Movistar) on the penultimate climb around 40km from home and then moved into a lone lead with a virtuoso piece of descending down the other side.

Pierre Rolland (Europcar) later set off in pursuit of his fellow Frenchman but couldn’t catch up and had to settle for second place, 33 seconds back, with Anacona finishing 59 seconds adrift in third.

Bardet said: "I knew this finish and we took it on in the Criterium du Dauphine as well. I know this route off by heart, but the last kilometres, even though I knew them well, were very hard."

Stage 18 was the second of four days in the Alps and took the riders on a 186.5km route containing seven categorised climbs and then a flat finish.

A strong breakaway was allowed to go clear and after Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha) moved above Froome to the top of the mountains classification by cresting all of the first five climbs first, Bardet took charge of the stage.

The 24-year-old Frenchman attacked a couple of kilometres short of the summit of the Col du Glandon and although Anacona followed, he couldn’t keep up on the subsequent descent and Rolland also left himself with too much to do as Bardet claimed the biggest win of his career.

Back down the road, Contador attacked on the Glandon with about 45km to go, predominantly with a view to overhauling Valverde in third place overall, but while he built up a lead of over a minute, he was caught on the descent.

Nibali and Quintana also attacked on the Glandon but were chased down immediately, and then both Nibali and Contador attacked once again without success on the day’s final climb, the spectacular Lacets de Montvernier.

The Tour continues on Friday with a 138km mountain stage from St-Jean-de-Maurienne to la Toussuire. Follow it with our live blog from 1pm BST and find out more about the route in our race guide.

Stage 18 result

1 Romain Bardet (Fra) Ag2r-La Mondiale, 5:03:40

2 Pierre Rolland (Fra) Europcar, +33secs

3 Winner Anacona (Col) Movistar, +59

4 Bob Jungels (Lux) Trek Factory Racing, same time

5 Jokob Fuglsang (Den) Astana, st

6 Serge Pauwels (Bel) MTN-Qhuebka, +1:01

7 Cyril Gautier (Fra) Europcar, +1:50

8 Damiano Caruso (Ita) BMC Racing, st

9 Andrew Talansky (USA) Cannondale-Garmin, +1:55

10 Warren Barguil (Fra) Giant-Alpecin, +3:02

Selected others