Britain's Chris Froome has tightened his grip on the Tour de France yellow jersey after winning the 17th stage time trial.
The Team Sky leader took his third stage win of the 100th edition of the famous race, narrowly beating his nearest rival Alberto Contador.
Darren Mara has the details.
The stage 17 time trial was one for the climbers and was tipped to favour a strong Tour rider rather than the sprinters.
It was also touted as perhaps the most technical time trial course the Tour has ever seen.
And it was Chris Froome of Team Sky who prevailed, proving he can win on the flats and in the mountains.
The 32-kilometre stage took the riders through two second-category climbs, the Cote de Puy-Sanieres and the Cote de Reallon.
Joaquin Rodriguez of team Katusha and Alejandro Valverde of team Moviestar put in strong stage performances, as did Roman Kreuziger.
But attention in the time trial was reserved for Froome and his main challenger Alberto Contador of team Saxo-Tinkoff.
Froome had trailed Contador by 11 seconds at the 20 kilometre mark only to rein in the deficit to finish nine seconds ahead of his Spanish rival, as S-B-S cycling commentator Phil Liggett described.
"He'll pick his head up, he'll see the banner, 51'42". Nineteen, 18, 17, the seconds tick away. Has he reversed an 11-second deficit? I think he has. He's 12, 11, 10. It'll be nine seconds for Chris Froome. He has gone the best time of the day. The face of Alberto Contador, he gave it his best shot and Chris Froome has just given it a better shot."
Froome now leads Contador in the General Classification by four minutes and 34 seconds, with Kreuziger trailing in third and Belgian cyclist Bauke Mollema in fourth.
The stage 17 win surprised even Froome, who'd had his sights set on the days ahead.
"I couldn't believe it when I got over the line and saw I had the fastest time there. I went into today thinking I'm going to try to limit my losses thinking about the days to come now. So, to go through the finish line with the fastest time, I really didn't see that coming."
Froome credited his stage win with a crafty bike change at the third time check, just ahead of the final descent to the finish line.
"That very well could have been the difference. I found for me personally when I rode the route this morning I felt that I needed the bigger gearing for this descent and the run-in was really fast so I made sure on the second bike I had bigger gears to be able to push that coming into the final there."
As well as the yellow leader's jersey, Froome also retains the King of the Mountain jersey.
Peter Sagan of team Cannondale holds on to the green sprinters jersey, whilst Nairo Quintana retains the white jersey for best young rider.
The stage saw the exit of Frenchman Jean-Christophe Peraud, who bravely partook in the race day after a warm-up crash and subsequent hospital visit.
Peraud crashed again during the race proper and will now sit out the remainder of the Tour.
Meanwhile, team BMC leader Cadel Evans had a stage to forget, losing over seven minutes in the overall standings, perhaps his worst ever time trial performance at the Tour.
After the stage, he conceded it's possible he's suffering fatigue from the Giro d'Italia race back in May.
"It's something that we tried knowing there's a certain element of risk to ride in the Giro and the Tour. I could not have done the Giro and come here fresher but not as good and still performed poorly. That was a decision we made back in March and obviously for the Tour it hasn't worked. A reasonable Giro wasn't so bad but of course I wanted to do a reasonable Giro and a very good Tour. That was the goal, but not much I can do about that now."
Of the other Australians, Michael Rogers finished 13th, while Stuart O'Grady was 41st and Richie Porte 57th.
Rogers, who rides alongside Alberto Contador with team Saxo-Tinkoff, moves up one place in the General Classification to 11th as a result.
Froome and the rest of the peloton will next tackle the 172.5-kilometre 18th stage from Gap to the legendary Alpe-d'Huez.
Traditionally a single climb, Tour organisers have presented a double ascent to the riders hoping for an attacking outcome.
SBS cycling commentator David McKenzie says the Alpe-d'Huez is the most anticipated climb in this year's Tour.
"It's a stadium for world cycling. It's the biggest mountain in terms of popularity. The roads are shut, in fact they were shut two days ago apparently because they've hit capacity. I think the last time they had a massive crowd there they topped out on one million people. So, imagine that. It's just going to be phenomenal."
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