Tour de France

Tour de France: Chris Froome destroys field to increase leadChris Froome produced a stunning ride to win stage 10 of the Tour de France and increase his overall lead to nearly three minutes.Team Sky rider Froome - who led by 12 seconds overnight - broke away with 7km to go of the first summit finish of this year's race to win emphatically in La Pierre-Saint-Martin.Tejay van Garderen now trails Froome by two minutes 52 seconds.Richie Porte was second, 59 seconds back, with Nairo Quintana third.It was the fifth stage win of the2013 champion'sTour de France career and puts him in a commanding position with 11 stages remaining.All of his main rivals for the yellow jersey lost significant time as Froome pulled clear, with Quintana now three minutes and nine seconds behind, Alejandro Valverde four minutes one second behind and Alberto Contador three seconds further back.Froome's Team Sky team-mate Geraint Thomas is now in fifth place overall while defending champion Nibali's challenge is in tatters after he lost more than four minutes to Froome."I'm lost for words," said Froome. "That was unbelievable."I could not believe it when I asked the guys to push on a bit and we were hearing on the radio the big names being dropped. It was textbook from the team and I'm just over the moon to finish it off for them."It was the first summit finish of the race and Froome could not have made a more decisive statement of his intention to claim his second Tour victory.The 30-year-old sat in with his Team Sky team-mates while Quintana's Movistar team made the early pace up the 15km climb towards the finish.A blistering rate soon saw riders disappearing out of the back, while at one point Froome appeared to be uncomfortable as he hung on a team-mate's wheel.But that proved to be nothing more than a rouse and when Froome made his explosive move there was nothing anybody could do to stay with him.The only danger to the Briton appeared to come from fans as they closed in around him on some of the steeper sections of the climb up the Cote de Cauterets.More to follow.Thanks for the feedback! UndoWhat was wrong with this ad?RepetitiveInappropriateIrrelevantThanks for the feedback! BackWell review this ad to improve the experience in the future.Thanks for the feedback! UndoWell use your feedback to review ads on this site.Closing ad: %1$d