Tour de Farce: Nairo Quintana loses Tour de France in... Holland

The diminutive Colombian put in a climbing masterclass on Saturday with a stinging attack on the legendary Alpine ascent that put yellow jersey Chris Froome in real danger.

But in the end, Quintana could have done with a few more uphill hairpin bends after he could only reduce his deficit from 2min 38sec to 1:12 going into Sunday’s processional stage into Paris.

Now if only Quintana had not been caught out in the crosswind splits en route to Zeeland that saw him lose well over a minute in stage two almost three weeks ago…

“I’m satisfied because we have never stopped trying to win the Tour,” Quintana said after his Movistar team put on a brilliant display of tactical riding on the short and sharp stage 20. “But I think I lost the Tour in the first week.”

This prompted some inevitable reactions on social media...

Quintana may leave the Tour empty handed (except for a selection of sweaty white jerseys) but his epic performance on Alpe d’Huez will be remembered for years to come.

It all started with Movistar throwing down the hammer on the first climb of day, the HC Col de la Croix Fer – although they did leave it late…

Woken from their stupor, Movistar then dropped the bomb.

Alejandro Valverde first pinged off the front as a softener before Quintana darted from the back of the thinning pack of main favourites to join his team-mate further up the road.

Sure, it came back together on the descent – but the Valverde-Quintana double header had revealed a chink in Froome’s yellow armour and given the Colombian hope ahead of the showpiece finale.

Before the main pack swung onto the steepest ramp of the climb to Alpe d’Huez the man they call the Shark was himself bitten by the jaws of karma.

Having ruffled Froome’s feathers on Friday by exploiting the yellow jersey’s mechanical problem on the Croix de Fer, Nibali found himself on the receiving end of bad luck when he punctured and needed an untimely bike change.

Meanwhile, all the talk was of the boisterous behaviour among the hundreds of thousand fans on the side of the Alpe – and in particular at the infamous Dutch Corner on the seventh bend around 6km from the finish.

Evidence of rowdiness soon trickled through on social media with one Dutch fan spotted holding – wait for it – a deck chair above his head.

British TV royalty Ned Boulting even suggested the Dutch fans may have got creative with some of their pots of orange paint.

The official Tour Twitter feed shared a video showing just how much fun was being had…

But just you imagine trying to cycle up through this – let alone drive…

Ironically, it was just ahead of Dutch Corner where eventual stage winner Thibaut Pinot made his decisive attack to drop Canadian Ryder Hesjedal.

Perhaps Hesjedal’s Cannondale-Garmin directeur sportive shouldn’t have been so quick to make his hopeful prediction…

When Froome did eventually fight his way through the sea of orange he was very much on the back foot following Quintana’s devastating slingshot attack with Valverde.

Froome looked very much like a man who had spent the past three weeks riding around France while dodging doping bullets, with the accumulative kilometres adding to the heat and the mental stress of being the man in yellow.

For the first time in the race we really saw evidence of his mortality as he struggled not only to respond to the attacks by his rivals but to hold the wheel of his Sky team-mates Wout Poels and Richie Porte.

Poels did his best covering the initial attacks by Quintana – and clearly took issue with a Colombian fan who decided to give the man in white a push up the hill.

Once the wiry Dutchman dropped off the pace it was left to Porte to nurse Froome up Alpe d’Huez – much as he had done two years previously when fetching his bonking team leader a much-needed energy gel.

Once again Froome had to deal with attacks not only by his rivals but by the fans lining the roads, with a second man in as many days caught on camera spitting on the race leader.

Given the man’s polka dot attire, he could well have been a fervent Romain Bardet fan eager to see the Frenchman win the king of the mountains competition. Even so, nothing warrants such despicable behaviour and this chap should be thoroughly ashamed of himself.

Perhaps the best comeuppance Froome could indirectly deliver was to finish fifth and pick up enough KOM points to wrest that polka dot jersey from Bardet’s slender shoulders – and in doing so, making history.

Of course, despite all the spits and spats out on Alpe d’Huez, cycling was the winner after back-to-back final stages in the Alps that really did blow the race apart.

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In a nutshell: The 40th anniversary of the race's showpiece finale on the Champs-Elysees will take place without the two-time winner Marcel Kittel.

History: The stage starts just down the road from the town of Ville-d'Avrey, where the sixth and final stage of the inaugural Tour finished (with Maurice Garin taking the spoils on the day and in the entire race). German sprinter Kittel took over Mark Cavendish's reign in on the Champs-Elysees with back-to-back wins in the past two years - but in his absence perhaps Cavendish can add to his quartet of wins between 2009 and 2013.

Believe it or not: Like Cavendish, Eddy Merckx has four wins in the French capital - although none of the Belgian's scalps came on the Champs-Elysees, with the most recognisable boulevard in Europe only becoming a staple in the Tour in 1975, one year after Merckx's last victory.

Did you know: The only other previous winner on the Champs-Elysees featuring in the race is Tinkoff-Saxo's Italian veteran Daniele Bennati, winner in 2007. Bennati, though, withdrew from the race in the Pyrenees.

Look out for: The Eurosport head office in the suburb of Issy-les-Moulineaux after 12km of riding - also the home of Tour organisers ASO and newspaper L'Equipe. A novel approach to central Paris through the Bois de Boulogne and then past the Eiffel Tower and along the Seine means fans will have something a little different to look forward to when it comes to the aerial imagery.

Terminology: Lanterne Rouge - the last rider in the general classification, literally 'the red lantern'. Come Paris there should be someone who has made this oddly prestigious position his own. Last year it was China's Cheng Ji, who finished more than six hours down on the winner, Vincenzo Nibali. In fact, following a crash on the Champs Elysees, the Giant-Alpecin rider was lapped by the peloton and didn't, technically, complete the race...

Plat du jour: Restaurants in Paris draw ingredients from all over the nation but some local specialities include a simple bavette steak with chips, Noisettes d'Agneau (lamb cutlets) and Crêpes Suzette (pancakes in butter and orange sauce) - served on a Sèvres china plate, or course.

Tour tipple: While it will be champagne all the way on the podium, local wine from Ile-de-France region - one of the nation's smallest wine-producing areas - is enjoying something of a resurgence of late. There are around 11 hectares (28 acres) in total - and while the Clos Montmartre vineyard is perhaps the most famous and certainly the most central in Paris, the suburb of Issy-les-Moulineaux produced a highly sought-after Chardonnay.