Chris Froome storms Tour de France stage 10 win

Chris Froome extended his lead at the Tour de France by blowing all of his rivals away with an emphatic victory on stage 10’s summit finish in the Pyrenees.

Chris Froome on his way to winning stage 10 of the Tour de France
Chris Froome on his way to winning stage 10 of the Tour de France

With Vincenzo Nibali and Alberto Contador having already been dropped, Froome attacked his remaining rivals with 6.4km left of the climb to the ski resort of La Pierre-Saint-Martin and went on to win by 59 seconds from runner-up Richie Porte as Team Sky completed a one-two on the day.

Nairo Quintana (Movistar) finished 1min 4sec down on Froome in third, but the other pre-race favourites suffered heavy losses on the 15.4km ascent.

Tejay van Garderen (BMC Racing) dropped 2min 30sec, Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo) lost 2min 51sec and Nibali (Astana) saw the defence of his 2014 title all but ended after he finished 4min 25sec down.

It means Froome now leads the race by 2min 52sec from second-placed Van Garderen and 3min 9sec from third-placed Quintana.

Contador’s hopes of completing the Giro d’Italia-Tour de France double are also in tatters as he now lies 4min 4sec down in sixth, while Nibali is 6min 57sec down in 10th.

Froome insists the race to Paris on July 26 is not yet over.

"I certainly wouldn't want to be in the position that some of my rivals are in right now," Froome added.

"I wouldn't want to be trying to make up those kind of time gaps.

"But the Tour is not over. We've only done one mountain. It's a long way to go.

"When we got up to that last climb and we heard the big names that were struggling and getting dropped I turned to the guys that were with me - Woet Poels, Richie Porte, Geraint Thomas - I just said, 'Guys come on, let's push on here, there's guys in trouble, obviously struggling after the rest day'.

"The guys lifted the pace and set it up for me so that I could attack still while the gradient was still quite steep, with about 5.5km before it started flattening out a bit.

"And just a dream, dream scenario to hear all those big guys getting dropped and to be able to ride away like that, in the yellow jersey. I really couldn't have asked for it to go any better."

Stage 10 result

1 Chris Froome (GB) Team Sky, 4:22:07

2 Richie Porte (Aus) Team Sky, +59 secs

3 Nairo Quintana (Col) Movistar, +1:04

4 Robert Gesink (Net) Lotto, +1:33

5 Alejandro Valverde (Spa) Movistar, +2:01

6 Geraint Thomas (GB) Team Sky, st

7 Adam Yates (GB) Orica-GreenEdge, +2:04

8 Pierre Rolland (Fra) Europcar, st

9 Tony Gallopin (Fra) Lotto Soudal, +2:22

10 Tejay van Garderen (USA) BMC Racing, +2:30

General classification

1 Chris Froome (GB) Team Sky, 35:56:09

2 Tejay van Garderen (US) BMC Racing, +2:52

3 Nairo Quintana (Col) Movistar, +3:09

4 Alejandro Valverde (Spa) Movistar, +4:01

5 Geraint Thomas (GB) Team Sky, +4:03

6 Alberto Contador (Spa) Tinkoff-Saxo, +4:04

7 Tony Gallopin (Fra) Lotto Soudal, +4:33

8 Robert Gesink (Net) LottoNL-Jumbo, +4:35

9 Warren Barguil (Fra) Giant-Alpecin, +6:12

10 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Astana, +6:57