They were joined in the final climb by Zakarin (Katusha), who jumped away 6.5km from the finish, followed by Pantano.
Advertisement
Zakarin rode clear of stage 15 victor Jarlinson Pantano of IAM Cycling and Tinkoff’s Rafal Majka in the king of the mountain’s polka dot jersey to collect his first Tour de France stage win.
His second stage win of this Tour came by 21 seconds from Dutch time-trial specialist Tom Dumoulin, but Froome’s first priority was to pick up time in the general classification.
Chris Froome said his rivals were battling for only a podium finish after putting time into everyone except Richie Porte on Wednesday’s first of four Alpine stages.
“It was very hard because of the heat”, Froome said. Pacing was key. I started steady and controlled the first part and then really went for it over the top.
After a long descent and some valley roads, which should give riders the opportunity to catch back on, the peloton will reach the biggest climb of the day – the hors categorie Col de la Forclaz.
“I didn’t have a great (day) today”.
“Of course the Tour de France is the most important race so the dream in the future is to win it”, Zakarin said.
A 17km time trial from Sallanches to Megève, the second shortest time trial in the tour since 1946, started without Fabian Cancellera and Shane Archibold who crashed on stage seventeen.
For Froome it was a near ideal scenario as he was pulled up the hill without needing to do a turn on the front himself ahead of Thursday’s time trial.
Quintana was on the attack twice in the Ventoux stage last week, but he was quickly reined in by Froome’s teammates, which made the Movistar rider look pretty much toothless.
Zakarin finished 55 seconds ahead of Pantano.
“I underwent surgery but I did not lose any time during my recovery”, he said.
Up above this remote spot only a few kilometres inside the Swiss border with France, Mont Blanc was unseasonably white, with snow warnings still in place for footpaths, in spite of the fact the Tour again baked in searing temperatures.
Among the overall contenders, Porte was the one who gained most from Wednesday’s stage.
Froome has disputed suggestions that other riders have been unwilling to challenge the Team Sky rider and his team-mates.
Riding several minutes behind the breakaway riders, Richie Porte attacked from the yellow jersey group around two kilometres from the finish before Froome accelerated.
FINHAUT-EMOSSON, Switzerland – Nairo Quintana was expected to celebrate Colombia’s national holiday with a major offensive in the Alps that would enable him to get closer to Tour de France leader Chris Froome.
Advertisement
Froome, who finished the stage in 11th place, extended his lead over second-placed Bauke Mollema of the Netherlands by 40sec to 2:27, with young Briton Adam Yates third at 2:53.
