Skip to content

Tour de France: Nairo Quintana hoping for fightback in the Alps

Nairo Quintana, Tour de France, stage 12
Image: Nairo Quintana is 2min 59sec adrift of Tour de France leader Chris Froome

Nairo Quintana is planning to attack Chris Froome in the Alps next week but admits he is now "a little far" behind the Tour de France leader.

Quintana fell to fourth place overall and 2min 59sec adrift of Froome following a disappointing performance on stage 13's individual time trial.

The Movistar rider is now in an almost identical situation to 12 months ago, when he trailed Froome by 3min 9sec after 13 stages but then mounted a ferocious fightback and eventually lost the race by only 1min 12sec.

Froome routs rivals in TT
Froome routs rivals in TT

Chris Froome extended his overall lead of the Tour de France as Tom Dumoulin won stage 13

This year's final week contains four back-to-back days in the Alps from stages 17-20 and Quintana is hoping for another late rally.

He said: "I'm three minutes down in the GC [general classification]; that's a little far. I hope the legs will continue to be good.

Nairo Quintana, Tour de France, stage 13
Image: Quintana lost 2min 5sec to Froome on stage 13's time trial

"There are still a lot of mountains and I will try to attack like I've always done. I hope I will have the legs to do it. We're going to try everything we can."

Friday's 37.5km time trial course contained two climbs that should have suited Quintana, but instead he laboured up the first of them and was already 33 seconds down on Froome after 7km.

Also See:

Tour de France standings
Tour de France standings

Top 10s in the general, points, mountains and youth classifications, plus stage results

He then struggled in high winds and ended up losing 2min 5sec to the Briton.

Quintana added: "My body responded better in the final part. I really suffered at first."

The Tour continues on Saturday with a mostly flat 208.5km 14th stage from Montelimar to Villars-les-Dombes. Find out more about the stage in our race guide and follow the action with our live blog from 1pm BST.

Around Sky