Vincenzo Nibali confirmed he will win the Tour de France and two Frenchmen will join him on the podium after a dramatic penultimate stage on Saturday.
After his remarkable deeds in the mountains, Nibali finished the individual time trial in an impressive fourth place behind winner and German speedster Tony Martin, and padded his overall lead by more than 40 seconds to nearly eight minutes.
It’s mainly a ceremonial ride on Sunday to the Champs-Elysees, where Nibali is set to become the first Italian winner of the Tour since Marco Pantani in 1998.
Nibali reduced the drama on stage 20 to who would join him on the podium on Sunday.
Jean-Christophe Peraud and Thibaut Pinot will be the first Frenchmen on the podium since Richard Virenque in 1997.
They did enough to leave behind an unlucky Alejandro Valverde of Spain in their three-man race for the final podium. Only 15 seconds separated them when the stage began in Bergerac, but it became more than two minutes when the time trial finished in Perigueux.
