The three time world champion Tony Martin won the penultimate stage of the Tour de France completing the time trial in 1:06.21. Tom Dumoulin finished second completing the course 1 minute 39 seconds slower than Martin and in third place was Jan Barta who was 8 seconds behind Dumoulin.

However, all eyes were on Vincenzo Nibali who came in fourth completing the stage in 1:08.19. Nibali has now secured his overall victory; he has an almost eight minute lead over second place Jean-Christophe Peraud with just the ceremonial final stage to go. He has become only the sixth rider in history to win all three grand tours and the first Italian winner of the Tour de France since Parco Pantani in 1998.

The real drama of the day was around the battle for second and third place. Peraud started the day in third place 13 seconds behind Thibaut Pinot. Despite suffering a puncture with 20km remaining, he still managed to finish seventh in the stage and overtake his younger compatriot. Now Pinot is 32 seconds behind Peraud and his only real consolation will be the white jersey for the Tour’s best young rider. The Spanish time trial champion Alejandro Valverde was expected to challenge the two but he finished more than two minutes behind Peraud and more than one minute adrift of Pinot. The success of the two means that it is the first time since 1984 that the podium will feature two Frenchmen.

All that remains for the riders is the final 137.5km stage to the Champs-Elysees in Paris which traditionally ends in a bunch sprint finish but rarely affects the overall standings.