Tour de France Stage 18 Results

Frenchman Romain Bardet Wins First Tour Stage

Romain Bardet, AG2R La Mondiale, won his first Tour stage victory. His late breakaway on the Col du Glandon pulled Bardet into the top ten of the GC competition, and Bardet is tied with Joachim Rodriguez, Team Katusha, in the King of the Mountains competition. This is the second French victory of the 2015 Tour. The top GC contenders crossed the finish line as a group, so there was little change in the upper part of the Yellow Jersey standings. Teams are increasingly defending and attacking each other in these last stages to maintain or move up in the GC standings. The breakaway group of 29 took all of the sprint points. Therefore, there was no change in the Green Jersey competition.

Stage 18 included the Hors Categorie climb of the Col du Glandon, 22 km up and 19 km down. It was a tough 186.5 km (116 mile ) route from Gap to Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne with hardly any flat stretches of road. It was a cloudy but warm day of up to 30 degrees C ( 86 F). Chris Froome, Team Sky, had a three minute lead over Nairo Quintana, Movistar Team, in the GC competition. The final climb of the stage is on Les Lacets de Montvernier, or the ‘the shoelaces of Montvernier’.  This is the first time that the Tour has used this impressive looking 3.4 km (2.1 mile) Category 2 climb. The road scales up the cliff face with eighteen hairpin turns.

Yesterday's stage saw two surprising abandons; Tejay Van Garderen, BMC Racing Team, and Michal Kwiatkowski, Etixx-Quick Step. Van Garderen had been ill with a respiratory infection and a fever and could not stay with the peloton. He was in third in the GC competition. Kwiatkowski, the current World Champion, could not make it up to yesterday's breakaway group and felt that he had nothing left. Mark Renshaw, Etixx-Quick Step, abandoned in today's stage. Renshaw is Mark Cavendish's top lead-out man for sprints.

A breakaway group of 29 formed and led the peloton by three minutes. The group included Joachim Rodriguez, who has been wearing Froome's Polka Dot Jersey, has now taken the lead in the King of the Mountains competition over Froome by going first over the climbs. And for the first time in days, Peter Sagan, Tinkoff-Saxo, was not in the breakaway group.

As the riders began the climb up the Col du Glandon, the 29 riders in the breakaway group shrank to 10 riders with other riders falling behind that group.The virtual Polka Dot jersey wearer Rodriguez was in the smaller breakaway group at the front of the race. The breakaway group included Andrew Talansky, Team Cannondale-Garmin, Romain Bardet, AG2R La Mondiale, and Bob Jungels, Trek Factory Racing.

Team Sky and Chris Froome were slowly losing riders as they were going up the Col du Glandon. Alberto Contador attacked with 44 km (23 miles) to go in Stage 18. Froome, Nairo Quintana, Movistar Team, and Alejandro Valverde, Movistar Team, did not react. Contador was trying to move up in the GC standings. Quintana and Vincenzo Nibali attempted to pull away from Froome. Froome and Team Sky countered the move and Valverde fell behind the yellow jersey group as it passed over the summit. Valverde caught up with the yellow jersey group on the descent. The top GC contenders crossed the finish line together.

Bardet pulled away from the breakaway group to go over the summit first. He stayed away on the long descent, 30 seconds ahead of 8 chasing riders including Rodriguez. Bardet earned enough points to pull even with Rodriguez in the Polka Dot jersey competition at 68 points. Pierre Rolland, Team Europcar, chased Bardet over the final kilometers of the stage but could not close the 40-second gap.

Stage 18 Results

1.	Romain Bardet	AG2R La Mondiale	05h 03' 40''
2.	Pierre Rolland	Team Europcar	05h 04' 13''	+ 00' 33''
3.	Winner Anacona	Movistar Team	05h 04' 39''	+ 00' 59''
4.	Bob Jungels	Trek Factory Racing	05h 04' 39''	+ 00' 59''
5.	Jakob Fuglsang	Astana Pro Team	05h 04' 39''	+ 00' 59''
6.	Serge Pauwels	MTN-Qhubeka	05h 04' 41''	+ 01' 01''

King of the Mountains Competition Standings

1.	Joachim Rodriguez	Team  Katusha	68 pts
2.	Romain Bardet	AG2R La Mondiale	68 pts
3.	Jakob Fuglsang	Astana Pro Team	64 pts
4.	Chris Froome	Team Sky	61 pts
5.	Serge Pauwels	MTN-Qhubeka	55 pts

GC Competition Standings

1.	Chris Froome	Team Sky	74h 13' 31''
2.	Nairo Quintana	Movistar Team	74h 16' 41''	+ 03' 10''
3.	Alejandro Valverde	Movistar Team	74h 17' 40''	+ 04' 09''
4.	Geraint Thomas	Team Sky	74h 20' 05''	+ 06' 34''
5.	Alberto Contador	Tinkoff-Saxo	74h 20' 11''	+ 06' 40''
6.	Robert Gesink	Team Lotto NL - Jumbo	74h 21' 10''	+ 07' 39''
7.	Vincenzo Nibali	Astana Pro Team	74h 21' 35''	+ 08' 04''
8.	Mathias Frank	IAM Cycling	74h 22' 18''	+ 08' 47''
9.	Bauke Mollema	Trek Factory Racing	74h 25' 37''	+ 12' 06''
10.	Romain Bardet	AG2R La Mondiale	74h 26' 23''	+ 12' 52''