Chris Froome (Sky) snatched victory on the stage 18 time trial from the hands of Giant-Alpecin's Tom Dumoulin, topping the Dutch champion by 21 seconds over the 17km mainly uphill test to further extend his lead in the Tour de France overall classification over Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo).
The battle for the other two podium places heated up, with Fabio Aru (Astana) putting in a strong performance to come third on the stage, moving ahead of Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) into seventh overall.
Richie Porte (BMC) also put in a good ride to come fourth on the stage, and is now just 44 seconds off Adam Yates (Orica-BikeExchange) for third place on the general classification.
