Tour de France Stage 18: Froome wins to tighten grip on yellow (+ video)

Team Sky’s Chris Froome remains on course to win the Tour de France for the third time in four years after clocking the fastest time in today’s short but mostly uphill individual time trial to Megeve.

Froome, as race leader the last man out on the course, was 21 seconds quicker on the 17 kilometre stage from Sallanches than Giant-Alpecin’s Tom Dumoulin, the Dutchman seeking his third stage win in this year’s race.

The third quickest rider today was Astana’s Fabio Aru, who finished the stage 33 seconds slower than Froome.

There was little to separate the two men currently occupying second and third places on the general classification.

Orica-BikeExchange’s Adam Yates finished in 16th place, 1 minute 23 seconds down on Froome but 2 seconds ahead of Trek-Segafredo’s Bauke Mollema, who remains second overall.

Afterwards, Froome said: “A big part of my success today was selecting the right equipment. When I saw the course, I thought I'd ride with the road bike but after the team analyzed it, we opted for a full TT set up. The Pinarello TT bike isn't 9kg anymore.

"The other aspect was pacing. For all those who started too fast, it was easy to get carried away. I didn't. I had some targets in my head with the numbers. I've had to adjust them more or less on the way but pretty much it went all according to the plan.

"I think I have a great advantage with two days to go. I keep the yellow jersey on my shoulders, but the next two days are really tough. The main thing for me is to stay out of trouble. I will not try to win a stage uphill.”