Vincenzo Nibali took a fourth victory in the 101st Tour De France when he stormed away to win in Hautacam.
In temperatures of 26 degrees, the riders rolled out on a 145.5km stage from Pau to Hatacam, led by the jersey wearers Vincenzo Nibali (yellow), Peter Sagan (green), Rafal Majka (polka dot) and Thibaut Pinot (white).
Perrig Quémeneur (Europcar) was first to attack but as he was being caught after five kilometres, Heinrich Haussler of IAM cycling abandoned.
Daniel Oss (BMC) and Bartosz Huzarski (NetApp) were the next to go clear four kilometres later but they too were brought back and twenty riders in Mikel Nieve (Sky), Jesus Herrada and Jon Izaguirre (Movistar), Yuriy Trofimov (Katusha), Alessandro De Marchi and Marco Marcato (Cannondale), Lars Boom (Belkin), Jan Bakelants (OPQS), Blel Kadri (AG2R), Matthieu Ladagnous (FDJ), Daniel Oss (BMC), Bryan Coquard, Kévin Reza and Thomas Voeckler (Europcar), Julien Simon (Cofidis), Sylvain Chavanel and Marcel Wyss (IAM), Bartosz Huzarski and Tiago Machado (NetApp) and Florian Guillou (Bretagne) took over.
This group of twenty enjoying a lead of 4.12 with 110kms to go before Belkin’s Lars Boom took two points for being the first over côte de Loucrucq.
Boom had to settle for third place at the intermediate sprint at Trébons after 61.5kms which was won by Bryan Coquard of Europcar ahead of Matthieu Ladagnous of FDJ who had been on the front as the race went through his hime village of Nay.
As the riders started on the 2115m col du Tourmalet, first Sylvain Chavanel and then Blel Kadri and Mike Nieve started to push clear.
Amid packed crowds, the duo pushed their way up the mounted which many had checked out during the Criterium Du Dauphine. The duo were 53 seconds clear of De Marchi, Trofimov and Huzarski.
Kadri took the 25 points on the Tourmalet and started on the long descent with 50kms to go with a lead of four and a half minutes back to the yellow jersey of Vincenzo Nibali.
On the D1918 heading towards Esterre, Kadri and Nieve had a lead of 1.23 whilst Alesandro Valverde was in a third group on the road with Tommy Voeckler some 3.53 back but fifteen seconds ahead of the peloton.
Onto the final major climb of this year’s Tour De France and Vincenzo Nibali had come back to within 1.45 of Kadri and Nieve.
With 12.2kms to go, Nieve went off on his own, whilst further down the road, Nibali was looking for his fourth stage win and riding with Chris Horner. But with 9.4kms left, Nibali put the hammer down and left Horner trailing in his wake as he chased as Nieve.
There was eight kilometres remaining when Nibali stormed past Nieve. Nibali, winner of the La Vuelta and The Giro, was soon into a nineteen second lead.
Nibali ploughed on up the Hautacam climb and was 1.13 ahead of Pinot and Péraud have 30 seconds lead over Valverde
There was some fog on the Hautacam but that did not affect the Astana rider who won in 4.04.17. Second was Pinot and followed by Maijka who wins the King Of The Mountains jersey.
Nibali leads the race by 7.10 from Pinot.
Source: DSG
