The 30-year-old was put under pressure by rival Nairo Quintana on the final mountain climb of the race but limited his losses to retain a 72-second lead.
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“It’s something that I have pursued my entire career, and now I have it”, Valverde said. We’ve been up against it all.
“We’ve faced all the challenges; almost three weeks of racing”.
“Throughout this Tour, every single day from stage one, the guys have just been fantastic”.
The green jersey for the points classification will go to Slovakian Peter Sagan and Quintana will don the white jersey for the best Under-25 rider.
“It was impressive; it was nearly risky”, Pinot said. “At that time I was really pushed by the crowd and it helped me and that was an impressive feeling”.
Quote of the day: “This will be burned into my memory: A victory on Alpe d’Huez is the stuff of dreams” – Pinot.
Quintana started the day 2:38 behind Froome, the victor of the 2013 Tour, but Quintana could only finish 1:19 ahead of Froome on the Alpe d’Huez climb.
Lars Bak, Nicolas Edet, Alexandre Geniez and Ramunas Navardauskas mounted an ambitious early break, with the peloton happy to allow the quartet to take the race at their own pace.
A “fan” leans in and spits on Chris Froome during stage 20 on Alpe d’Huez.
The stage started slowly but ramped up quickly on the Hors Category Col de la Croix de Fer. The gap at that stage was 5:20. So many emotions were going through my mind during that last climb.
Geniez crested the climb alone, beginning the long descent into the valley below. With Froome rocking his head back and forth, Poels and teammate Richie Porte hung back.
And yesterday, having done exactly that on the slopes of Alpe d’Huez, Froome was at last able to reap the benefits in full.
Barring sickness or a freak crash on the final stage, which finishes on the Champs Elysees in the French capital, the result is set to be a repeat of the 2013 Tour where Froome relegated Quintana to second place.
“I think I lost the Tour during the first week”, said the Colombian who was 1:30 adrift of the Briton in a flat second stage in the Netherlands. Richie Porte’s pace-setting for Froome? Hesjedal would soon battle his way across.
All did sterling jobs, but, in a triumph for nominative determinism, today’s Top Banana goes to victor Anacona. The Colombian took six bonus seconds on the line but that left him 1:12 short of overhauling Froome.
Pinot rode through hundreds of flare-waving spectators in the “Dutch corner” and occasionally looked back.
They led Froome up the mountain, constantly looking behind to make sure he was still in their wheels.
“We fought all that we could to try and gain the time we had lost on Froome, with an attacking strategy from far, far away from the finish, trying to isolate him at the Croix de Fer”, said Quintana.
Every few minutes, Froome’s sporting directors fed him updates on Quintana’s growing advantage over the radio. Quintana broke free when, in a third move he bridged across to join then drop Valverde in pursuit of Frenchman Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) who was leading the stage. Hesjedal would roll in third, 41 second down on Pinot.
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Britain’s Chris Froome is set to win the Tour de France for the second time after keeping hold of the race leaders yellow jersey at the conclusion of the final Alpine stage of the race, despite being given a scare by Colombia’s Nairo Quintana in the closing kilometres up Alpe d’Huez.
