Vincenzo Nibali extended his lead in the 101st Tour De France with victory on stage thirteen.
The race headed into the Alps with a 197.5km stage from Saint-Étienne to the mountain finish at Chamrousse and the action started straight away with an attack from Alessandro De Marchi (Cannondale), José Serpa (Lampre Merida), Jens Voigt (Trek Factory Racing), Luke Durbridge (Orica GreenEDGE), Brice Feillu (Bretagne) and Yukiya Arashiro (Europcar).
That was quickly dealt with by the peloton led by race leader Vincenzo Nibali of Astana but before the first climb of the day at the col de la Croix de Montvieux, Bartosz Huzarski (NetApp) and Brice Feillu (Bretagne), Giovanni Visconti (Movistar), Alessandro De Marchi (Cannondale), Blel Kadri (AG2R), Kristjan Durasek (Lampre) and Daniel Oss (BMC) had got a mimute clear.
That lead went out to three minutes and then five minutes as FDJ's Arthur Vichot abandoned due to sickness and average speeds of 43.8km/h for the first two hours were announced.
With a hundred kilometres left, the escapers were four minutes ahead. Four kilometres later, Daniel Navarro of Cofidis pulled over to the side of the road and got off his bike and abandoned along with Janier Acevedo of Garmin Sharp.
The riders might have been suffering due to sickness and the heat but the chase of the escapers was on and with 70kms to go, the gap was down to less than two minutes.
On to the 1154m category one climb of the col de Palaquit and Blel Kadri and Jan Bakelants were on the front as the early break split. They were joined by De Marchi who took over front running duties with 55kms remaining.
De Marchi took the ten points for the climb with a lead of 2.40 over the peloton and by the time he reached the line of the intermediate sprint at Saint Martin-O'Heres, he was 45 seconds clear of Jan Bakelants and 3.17 ahead of the peloton and 14.12 ahead of a group containing Berni Eisel.
The road started to go upwards dramatically for the final 18.2km climb to Chamrousse with gradients of 7.3%. Riders were being dropped all over the road with Nicholas Roche and Geraint Thomas amongst those struggling with the conditions.
De Marchi was caught at the 182km mark and on 10% climbs, Nibali led a group containing Mikel Nieve and Richie Porte (Sky), Alejandro Valverde (Movistar), Rafal Majka and Michael Rogers (Tinkoff), Tanel Kangert (Astana), Bauke Mollema and Laurens ten Dam (Belkin), Jean-Christophe Péraud and Romain Bardet (AG2R), Rui Costa and Chris Horner (Lampre), Thibaut Pinot (FDJ), Jurgen van den Broeck (Lotto) Tejay van Garderen and Peter Stetina (BMC), Pierre Rolland (Europcar), Fränck Schleck and Haimar Zubeldia (Trek), Leo König (NetApp). towards the summit.
Porte was shelled by this group which watched Valverde attack.but the Spaniard could do nothing to stop Vincenzo Nibali joining him and then riding away to join Majka and König on the front.
Nibali went away and he took his third win of this race with victory in 5.12.29, followed by Majka and König who were ten and eleven seconds down and Alejandro Valverde who was fifty seconds down and Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) some fifty three seconds back.
Nibal now leads the race by 3.37 and by 4.24 from Bardet.