Saturday 28 July 2018 10:59, UK
Geraint Thomas moved to within touching distance of winning the Tour de France after sprinting to a second-place finish on the final mountain stage.
Thomas' now trademark finish earned him six bonus seconds to increase the Team Sky rider's general classification lead over Tom Dumoulin to two minutes and five seconds heading into Saturday's time trial, with Chris Froome dropping to fourth overall behind Primoz Roglic following the Slovenian's fine stage victory.
The 200km trek from Lourdes to Laruns, which featured three classic climbs through the Pyrenees, was won with a brilliant descent down the Col d'Aubisque which helped Roglic pull clear of the other GC contenders in the final kilometres and cross the line 19 seconds clear.
The 10 bonus seconds he also collected for victory moved him 13 seconds clear of Froome to threaten the four-time winner's position on the podium in Paris on Sunday.
But it was Team Sunweb's Dumoulin, who is the world time trial champion, who was the main focus of attention for Thomas on a stage that included over 5,000 metres of climbing and over the Aspin, Tourmalet and Aubisque.
Having tracked the wheel of the Dutchman all day, he will now be confident of defending his advantage in Saturday's 31-kilometre race against the clock, where the general classification fight will be settled.
The race came to life at the foot of the Tourmalet, as Ilnur Zakarin of Katusha-Alpecin attacked and drew out Movistar's Mikel Landa, AG2R La Mondiale's Romain Bardet, and Bora-Hansgrohe's Rafal Majka.
Team Sky looked unruffled, but over the course of the Tourmalet's 17km, at an average gradient of 7.3 per cent, the group pulled more than two minutes clear, and that advantage only grew as they caught the day's breakaway on the descent.
That moved Landa temporarily up to second in the virtual classification and within 80 seconds of yellow, but their advantage would begin to dwindle as they started to attack one another on the Aubisque.
As the yellow jersey group closed in on those up the road, Roglic's LottoNL-Jumbo team-mate Steven Kruijswijk and then Dumoulin launched attacks to test Thomas.
But although the moves distanced Froome, who used the wheel of team-mate Egan Bernal to track back to the leaders - Thomas never missed a beat and ensured he stayed out of trouble on a terrifying final descent through the mist as Roglic, a former junior world ski jump champion, launched the attack that propelled him into podium contention.
1 Primoz Roglic (Slo) LottoNL-Jumbo 05:28:17
2 Geraint Thomas (GBr) Team Sky +19s
3 Romain Bardet (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale +19s
4 Daniel Martin (Irl) UAE Team Emirates +19s
5 Rafal Majka (Pol) Bora-Hansgrohe +19s
6 Tom Dumoulin (Ned) Team Sunweb +19s
7 Mikel Landa (Spa) Movistar Team +19s
8 Chris Froome (GBr) Team Sky +19s
9 Steven Kruijswijk (Ned) LottoNL-Jumbo +31s
10 Ilnur Zakarin (Rus) Katusha-Alpecin +31s
1 Geraint Thomas (GBr) Team Sky 79:49:31
2 Tom Dumoulin (Ned) Team Sunweb +2:05
3 Primoz Roglic (Slo) LottoNL-Jumbo +2:24
4 Chris Froome (GBr) Team Sky +2:37
5 Steven Kruijswijk (Ned) LottoNL-Jumbo +4:37
6 Mikel Landa (Spa) Movistar Team +4:40
7 Romain Bardet (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale +5:15
8 Daniel Martin (Irl) UAE Team Emirates +6:39
9 Nairo Quintana (Col) Movistar Team +10:26
10 Ilnur Zakarin (Rus) Katusha-Alpecin +11:49
