Team News – Quintana escapes From Froome

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Nairo Quintana (Movistar) did what no one else has done so far, put time into Chris Froome to set up a classic day on L’Alpe d’Huez

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Team News – Quintana escapes From Froome

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The penultimate mountain stage of the 2015 Tour de France left everything wide open before Saturday’s showdown on the Alpe d’Huez -110km including the climb towards the Croix de Fer (HC) before the most famous ascent in professional road cycling-L’Alpe d’Huez.

Nairo Quintana put a little time into GC leader Chris Froome (SKY) on the overall standings while Alejandro Valverde kept his 3rd place into a podium that he’ll have to defend with all his energy after struggling on the final metres of the Glandon, against a new big threat, Vincenzo Nibali (Astana).

With 6km remaining on La Toussuire, Nairo Quintana launched a series of strong accelerations that ended up dropping Froome, opening a gap that increased up to 30 seconds.

Nairo Quintana: “Overall, the day went pretty well, but we missed that final touch. We initially tried to control Nibali, thinking that Sky would start chasing later on, but it’s true that a rider like Vincenzo was really far in the overall standings at that moment and they didn’t have to care about him. We kept pushing with José Herrada, who was fantastic, and Tinkoff pulled a bit later on to gain some time back”.

“I’ve been pretty strong but it wasn’t enough to dethrone Froome. He defended himself well. I didn’t follow Nibali because I thought it was too far away from the finish. I first wanted to make Team Sky work. The last 5km seemed to be the most appropriate because the rhythm set by Tinkoff was very high. I’ve missed the final touch. Tomorrow it’ll be all or nothing.

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“I jumped when I thought it was the right moment to put distance between me and Froome, but it wasn’t enough compared to what we thought. There’s only one day left, the final mountains for all of us – we’ll try to attack stronger and also fight for the stage win.

“Tomorrow, maybe we will try from a little bit further away. Froome defended well today. He is very strong. Tomorrow we will try to control the race to try to win the stage,” Quintana added “To win on l’Alpe d’Huez is the dream of any rider.”

Regarding Alejandro(‘s podium chances), I think there shouldn’t be any problems when riding face-to-face tomorrow; we conceded a big gap today, but I think they’ll be together tomorrow.”

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