Thomas before Tour victory – Dumoulin wins time trial

The 32-year-old will be heading into the show on the Champs-Élysées in Paris on Sunday in the yellow jersey, 1:51 minutes ahead of second-placed Tom Dumoulin. The world champion from the Netherlands won the 31-kilometer time trial on Saturday in 40:52 minutes. Only a serious fall could spoil Thomas, captain of the strong Sky team, the big celebration in the last 116 kilometers of the 105th Tour of France.

The fight for third place was particularly exciting in the tough individual time trial with a 900 meter long, more than ten percent gradient. The dethroned series winner Chris Froome gave former ski jumper Primoz Roglic a little lesson and moved up to second place on the day, just one second behind time trial world champion Dumoulin, to third place in the overall classification, 2:24 minutes behind his teammate Thomas. The Slovenian Roglic, who had particularly surprised in the last stages of the Pyrenees, slipped to fourth place.

“It's a dream to be on the podium next to Geraint in Paris. “It was very difficult for me on the last stage of the Pyrenees yesterday, so I almost didn’t believe in it anymore,” said Froome. Subject to the outcome of the final stage, where there is traditionally a non-aggression pact between the favorites, Thomas completed the third British Tour victory since 2012. With one exception in 2014 (Vincenzo Nibali), Team Sky has been the overall winner six times in the past seven years.

Three of the Tour's four top riders had only met once before in a time trial. At the last World Cup in Bergen, Norway, Dumoulin won ahead of Roglic and Froome. The Briton was allowed to start even though his elevated levels of the asthma drug salbutamol had been measured weeks ago.

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Thomas before Tour victory – Dumoulin wins time trial

At the finish, Geraint Thomas celebrated and crossed the line in Espelette in third place in the time trial. The Welsh professional cyclist also confidently passed the final endurance test of the Tour de France.

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