2013 Tour de France Stage 18 Results & Recap
Stage 18 of the 2013 Tour de France is in the books. The final results and standings are below, followed by our recap of how the race unfolded.
Race Recap
Riblon wins Tour de France queen stage to l'Alpe d'Huez
It's taken two-and-a-half weeks, but France finally claimed its first stage win of this year's Tour de France - and on the greatest cycling stage of all - when Ag2r La Mondiale's Christophe Riblon took a sensational solo victory at Alpe d'Huez. After being dropped by BMC's Tejay van Garderen on the early ramps as the break of the day tackled the famous ascent for the second time, Riblon gradually clawed back a deficit of 45 seconds on the second half of the climb and finally bridged up to the struggling American with just two kilometres remaining.
Riblon didnâ??t hesitate before attacking hard. BMC's van Garderen was almost completely spent and unable to respond, as the Frenchman shot past to claim his first victory since his success at Ax 3 Domaines in the 2010 Tour.
The battle for the yellow jersey was just as gripping. Saxo-Tinkoff were on the offensive throughout the stage, but Alberto Contador was unable to respond when race leader Chris Froome (Team Sky) attacked on the lower slopes of Alpe d'Huez. Nairo Quintana (Movistar) and Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha) did get across to the yellow jersey, who got strong support from teammate Richie Porte. And how Froome needed that higher on the climb when he began to struggle for the first time in this Tour.
Signalling for food and water, he fell back from Quintana and Rodriguez, who rode hard to press home their advantage. This pair each gained a minute on Froome, who himself gained a minute on Contador to extend his overall lead to more than five minutes.
Get our full coverage of the Tour de France and every race we cover with our mobile app! The apps have over 100 additional exclusive features, including our award-winning Time Machine feature that lets you pause/rewind/replay the entire app to sync with delayed race video, integrated Fantasy Cycling, push notifications, an integrated news feed, live GPS tracking, world-class commentary, and our animated interactive maps and profiles.
