Riblon wins it for France as Froome displays his first sign of weakness

France experience their first home victory of the 100th Tour as Riblon takes the 18th stage win. 

With thunder storms forecasted for the 18th stage of the Tour de France the race was never going to run  smoothly. Yellow jersey holder, Chris Froome's race certainly went off with an immediate bang as his nearest rival, Alberto Contador's team, Saxo-Tinkoff, attacked the leader as soon as they came close to the foot of the first climb. This would be Froome's first challenge of the day as he was left isolated from his fellow team Sky riders and had no choice but to chase on his own. Contador was obviously wanting to go out hard Thursday on the mountains as he attempted another attacking move up the ascent but the move came to nothing as team Sky who were leading the peloton caught them in a matter of minutes. 

With 55km to go American, van Garderen, broke away from the group and this move stretched the peloton as many riders began to chase down the BCM rider. With the race beginning to intensify Contador attempted another attack with 32km to go but this time on a dangerous decent and with the rain falling down team Sky decided not to chase hard as the risk was too high. Despite not chasing, team Sky managed to put a sizeable lead over Contador as the Spaniard paid for his continuous spurts of attack on the second ascent. It was not a good day for the Saxo-Tinkoff team as they could not do anything to challenge the man in the yellow jersey. 

With 21km to go team Sky who had been leading the chase group for most of the day received help from team Movistar as they attempted to drag the chasing group up the mountain in order to put their team mate, Quintana, in a good position to challenge for a podium finish. With 7 minutes to close down in under 21km it was a lot to ask of the young Colombian who has been the revelation of the tour but Quintana is more than an exceptional climber and he managed to finish the race in fourth position which led to him jumping from fifth to third in the General Classification, 5 minutes and 32 seconds behind Froome. A great day for Movistar on the bike. 

After a mechanical problem on the first decent, BCM rider, Tejay van Garderen, powered himself up the second climb and with 12km to go he pushed past Frenchman, Christophe Riblon, to take the lead once more. The American did well to fight back but the effort that went in to his chase inevitably came back to hurt him as the stage leader's legs began to buckle under the relentless torture of the Alpe d'Huez. With suprising acceleration and to the delight of the home crowd, Riblon passed van Garderen who has no reply, to take the first French stage win of the Tour and his own first win since 2010. 

It was evident that Froome was finding it hard to keep up with the pace of the riders as he chased up the mountain, even with the help of star support rider Richie Porte. Richie Porte put on an incredible riding display during Thursday's 18th stage. Having been dropped by the yellow jersey group less than 10km from the finish, the Australian powered his way back to Froome's side and straight to the front of the group at such pace that Froome had to ask his team mate to slow down. Froome finally hit The Wall with 4km to go and, despite knowing that it would cost him, the leader sent Porte back to the team car to get him some gels as he was suffering from glucose debt. 

Despite having 20 seconds deducted from each of their times for illegal feeding, Froome ended one of his toughest days on the bike by increasing his lead over Contador to 5'11". 

Froome now has to watch Quintana going in to Friday's race. If Movistar can get behind their great mountain climbing and with five climbs during the 19th stage of the tour, the young Colombian could cause a lot of problems for team Sky has they attempt to secure the yellow jersey. 

Photograph: Jacky Naegelen/Reuters