Team Sky goes one-two again with Froome in second place; Luis León Sánchez denied by British team again
Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) stamped his authority over the 2012 Tour de France, and proved that he has been the strongest rider in the race, with a second time trial victory in stage 19 between Bonneval and Chartres. The last man to start, dressed in a yellow skinsuit and helmet, Wiggins blasted around the flat 53.5km course in a time of 1 hour, 4 minutes, 13 seconds, in an average speed of exactly 50kph.
Wiggins performance pushed Sky teammate, and super-domestique, Chris Froome - who had finished less than two minutes before him - off the top spot, increasing his lead over the Kenyan-born rider by 1’16”. Froome himself had just knocked Spanish time trial champion Luis León Sánchez (Rabobank) out of the hot seat, whose time of 1hr 06’03” was set halfway through the race, and was good enough to hold off all comers until the two British riders finished.
“The British flags out there on the roadside... it's bloody humbling,” said Wiggins afterwards. “You just think, ‘Why me?' in a way. Just seeing the happiness of everyone out there today was an incredible feeling.
“The reason I feel like this is because I have a sense of what I've achieved because I know my cycling and I can't really sum it up in articulate terms. What happened out there is just incredible!”
Stage 19 saw Wiggins second time trial victory of the race; he also won stage nine, between Arc-en-Senans and Besançon, where Froome also finished in second place.
“This is what I ultimately do best; time trialling,” Wiggins explained. “It was a superb course and I just wanted to finish the job off in style. There was a lot of emotion in the last 10km there when I knew I was ahead. Everything was going through my mind, all the years of getting to this point... all the disappointments like crashing out of the Tour last year and watching Cadel in this very position in Grenoble; I always imagined what it would feel like and now I know what it felt like last year.
“It's the Tour man, it doesn't get much bigger than this!”
Wiggins’ and Froome’s times saw them move further ahead of third place Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas-Cannondale), who conceded 3’38” to the race winner. The Italian held off the challenge from Jurgen Van Den Broeck (Lotto-Belisol) in fourth, who himself just kept white jersey Tejay van Garderen (BMC Racing) at bay.
The only movement from within the top ten saw defending champion Cadel Evans (BMC Racing) slip from sixth to seventh, as a bad day saw him caught by van Garderen, and lose time to Haimar Zubeldia (RadioShack-Nissan) who moved up.
Janez Brajkovič (Astana) just failed to take enough time out of best French rider Pierre Rolland (Europcar), who held onto eighth place, while 22-year-old Thibaut Pinot (FDJ-BigMat) - the youngest rider in the race - did enough to hold onto his tenth place.
One final challenge to overcome before Paris
Having negotiated 3314.5km of some of the toughest terrain that France had to offer, the only thing that stood between the Tour de France peloton and Paris was the flat, final time trial. The stage should have been a mere formality for Bradley Wiggins to hold on to his yellow jersey, but a badly timed puncture, crash, or mechanical could see it all come crashing down.
The first rider to start, on the stroke of noon, was Saur-Sojasun’s Jimmy Engoulvent, who’d slipped into the prestigious Lanterne Rouge spot on the previous day’s fast and furious finish. The early running was set by the tenth rider to start however, Argos-Shimano’s Patrick Gretsch, who set the best time at all the checkpoints.
Engoulvent crossed the line in 1hr 12’49”, but Gretsch followed just a few riders later in 1hr 06’41” catching Kuchynski on the line, and having already passed Argos-Shimano teammate Albert Timmer, Sebastian Langeveld (Orica-GreenEdge) and Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Sharp).
The former World under-23 time trial silver and bronze medallist’s mark was to stand for almost exactly two hours, as 77 riders tried, and failed, to match it.
Dave Zabriskie (Garmin-Sharp) was one of the first to come close the Gretsch, and was just 12 seconds down after 14km. The US champion was unable to increase his pace and was 36 seconds back after 30.5km however. A late charge saw him lose just eight seconds in the final sector, but Zabriskie finally crossed the line 44 seconds down on the German.
Vasil Kiryienka (Movistar) also pushed Gretsch close, finishing just 18 seconds down, but wasn’t until the 88th rider to set off that anybody could go better; as stage 14 winner, and the previous day’s breakaway hero, Luis León Sánchez went three seconds quicker at the first check.
Sánchez was 16 seconds up after 30.5km, and 31 seconds after 48km, and the Spanish champion crossed the line in 1hr 06’03”, 38 seconds quicker, to move into provisional first place.
Having taken so long for a rider to beat Gretsch, his replacement in the hot seat, Sánchez, was proving equally difficult to dislodge. Wiggins’ Team Sky mountain domestique Richie Porte came within 35 seconds of the Spanish champion, then Slovakian champion Peter Velits (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) went just 12 seconds slower at the finish.
It was not until the late starters, and the strongest riders of the 2012 Tour, that Sánchez’ time was really put under pressure.
The top riders are on the road and putting the stage leader under pressure
Tejay van Garderen finally went quicker than Sánchez through the 14km check, lowering the best time by three seconds to 17’24”. The American in the white jersey was trying to close in on Jurgen Van Den Broeck in fourth place overall and, as the Belgian went through in 17’50” a few minutes later, losing 26 seconds in their overall battle.
Nibali - riding another career-best time trial - was just six seconds behind van Garderen at the first check, but then Froome flew through 23 seconds faster in 17’01”. Wiggins was not far behind his teammate however, and flew through the 14km point in 16’49”, taking another 12 seconds off to set the best time.
Van Garderen had slipped back a little by the 30.5km check, and was 24 seconds behind Sánchez in fourth place as he went through. The 23-year-old was closing in on team leader Cadel Evans however - crossing a three-minute gap - who was clearly not enjoying the course. As they passed under the 20km banner, van Garderen breezed past the defending champion, and set about trying to make up ground on Zubeldia, the next rider ahead of him on the road.
Van Den Broeck was 1’31” slower than Sánchez at the second check, which meant that he had conceded 1’07” of his 2’37” lead to van Garderen. Nibali was just 1’03” slower than the Spaniard, which meant he was making his third place overall safer, and pulling further away from the Belgian rider.
Froome went through in 37’35” however, but, although he was faster than Sánchez again, he was now just four seconds ahead. Wiggins was getting faster however, lowering the best time at the 30.5km point to 36’41”, and was now 54 seconds ahead of his teammate.
The big names finish and the yellow jersey ends on a high
The riders in the top ten were beginning to reach the finish, as Thibaut Pinot crossed the line in 1hr 09’44”. This meant that the 22-year-old had held off the challenge of Andreas Klöden (RadioShack-Nissan), who had just climbed over a disappointing Nicolas Roche (AG2R La Mondiale) to move into 11th place.
Brajkovič crossed the line shortly afterwards in 1hr 09’51”, meaning that he had held off any challenge from Pinot; as Rolland followed a few minutes later in 1hr 10’27”, he had conceded 38 seconds to Brajkovič, but this was not quite enough for him to lose his eighth place overall to the Czech rider.
Zubeldia almost lost it on a late corner, but managed to finish in 1hr 09’45”, which was good enough to defend his seventh place from those behind him, and possibly move above Evans, with the Australian defending champion still struggling around the course.
Van Garderen was next to finish and, although he had sped up a little in the final sector, he had slipped to fifth - behind Gretsch - and crossed the line in 1hr 06’47”. Evans was not far behind him, but his time of 1hr 10’07” saw him lose his sixth place to Zubeldia.
Out on the course, Froome was 22 seconds quicker than Sánchez at 48km, but Wiggins then went through 1’15” quicker still. Van Den Broeck’s finishing time of 1hr 08’35” meant that the Belgian had conceded 1’48” to van Garderen, but still had 49 seconds in hand over the American white jersey winner.
Nibali then crossed the line in 1hr 07’51”, but Froome was only a few moments behind him, finally knocking Sánchez out of the hot seat with 1hr 05’29”.
Wiggins was already approaching the finish however, and the British rider punched the air as he crossed the line; stopping the clock in 1hr 04’13” to take his second time trial victory of the race, and to confirm his overall victory.
With hostilities traditionally suspended on the final stage into Paris, only a disaster could prevent Wiggins from becoming the first British Tour de France champion; 40 years after his hero Tom Simpson was the first rider to pull on the yellow jersey.