The short story of yesterday’s stage was that Alejandro Valverde won the final mountain top stage of the Tour and that Bradley Wiggins appears to have wrapped up the yellow jersey, barring a disastrous time trial, a crash or a cloud of pestilence descending upon him (Sky has prepared for plagues of locusts and frogs, but have left the door wide open for lice and gnats, take note Liquigas!). The longer story of the stage involves team intrigue, WAG tweets and a roadside dong sighting, I don’t think there’s any doubt which story lines I will concentrate on.

First, there’s the issue of whether Chris Froome could’ve won this Tour, and the answer to that question is a very satisfying "maybe". On the mountaintop finish on stage 11, the Froome Wagon swept up all of the Big Wig’s opponents, and distanced others. Wiggo put himself to the front for a bit and then Froome jumped, presumably for the stage win, but his jump was a bit too good, and he was beckoned back to his perch in front of Wiggo’s nose by the Sky team radio. Froome then dutifully ground out the rest of the stage with Wiggo in tow.

Then a lot of nothing happened, well, there were stages but it was mostly guys in breaks with Sky riding near the front, it was compelling stuff and—no, I can’t pretend it was anything but boring, sorry. Enter stage 17, the last mountain stage with a finish on Peyragudes (note to the Tour, descents to the finish line can be compelling, but how about just ONE? Neutering the majority of the mountain stages with descents at the end is a bad move), this was the last slim chance for anyone to make up time on the Sky Death Star. Cadel had blown the day before, so that left Nibali as the last rebel with a chance to dive into Sky’s Equatorial Trench.

Nibali sent his Liquigas team to the front in the stage because he must’ve felt Sky needed a rest, and they ground away a good portion of the pack while Wiggo and Froome chatted about plans to go to dinner with their significant others (that didn’t happen, but Liquigas actually DID ride on the front—yeah, no one else knows why either). As they hit the last climb, everyone was able to counter the Liquigas move, but no one really got any time. Nibz eventually lost about 15-ish seconds on the stage, while Wiggo and Froome jumped up the road.

And then the last Ks happened. Valverde was ahead by about a minute, while Wiggo and Froome were together (shocker) behind. Wiggo is two minutes ahead of Froome on the GC, so the Froome Wagon probably could’ve jumped and caught Valverde for the stage, and that seemed to be what was going to happen, but… Here’s what Froome’s lady friend Michelle Cound tweeted as it happened:

Michelle Cound ‏@michellecound
3km’s to go… Valverde 1min11 ahead… come on @chrisfroome !!!!

Michelle Cound ‏@michellecound
DAMN IT GOOOOOOO

Yeah, that’s about what we all felt. Froome did jump, but behind Wiggins started the most bizarre Tour de France game of "red light, green light" ever seen. Froome would go, Wiggo would say, "wait up", Froome would look back, slow up and try to go again, and Wiggo would ask him to hold hands. I think this happened roughly 23 times. This stopping and starting allowed Valverde to win the stage 20 seconds ahead of Froome and Wiggo, with Froome finishing in WTF place and Big Wig turd. Here’s Michelle Cound’s twitter recap:

Michelle Cound ‏@michellecound
Suddenly not so in the mood for Paris on Saturday… what a joke!

Michelle Cound ‏@michellecound
I know how much Chris wanted to win that stage, so disagree with me as much as you like.. #whatever

If I were running Eurosport or NBC, I would be negotiating to shove Michelle Cound into the commentary booth for the final time trial, if only for the swearing.

And now the 2012 Tour is all but over, Froome seems to have the better climbing legs this year, but he’s played the role of loyal teammate. I cannot imagine he’ll be back in this same scenario again next season. It’ll be either Froome or Wiggins leading Sky at the Tour next year, and I’ll be amazed if they think they can bring both of them back again and not have a toothpick-armed World War on their hands.

But on to the real excitement of the day, I give you Ricardo Montaldong (™@autofact), click if you dare, but remember, some things cannot be unseen…