Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) clinched overall victory in the Tour de France on Saturday with a strong showing in the penultimate stage.
The Italian finished the 54 kilometre individual time trial in fourth place, 1:58 behind stage winner Tony Martin (OPQS).
The early pace was set by Sky's Danny Pate, but the world time trial champion Martin justified his tag as the favourite for the stage victory, winning on the day with a time of 1:06:21.
Giant-Shimano's Samuel Dumoulin came in second, 1:39 on Martin, while Jan Barta (NetApp-Endura) rolled in a further eight seconds back.
Jean-Christophe Péraud (Ag2r-La Mondiale) overcame a puncture with 20 kilometres remaining to move up into second place overall behind Nibali, pushing Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) into third.
“It’s an enormous satisfaction,” said Péraud.
“The withdrawals of (Chris) Froome and (Alberto) Contador opened a range of possibilities and I started dreaming about this second place.
"I’m happy to have achieved that goal. I have a feeling of mission accomplished and a lot of joy today.”
Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) is fourth overall, while BMC's Tejay Van Garderen is fifth.
The American leapfrogged Romain Bardet (Ag2r-La Mondiale) who, like his compatriot Péraud, suffered a puncture. Unfortunately he was unable to recover as much time and missed out on fifth place by two agonising seconds.
“Three weeks of nonstop work and now this. … Everything got broken to pieces with two kilometers to go,” he said.
“It didn’t go well today. I didn’t have any news until I punctured. That’s sport.
“To miss [fifth place] by two seconds is really frustrating.
"When you cross the line, it’s a maximum effort by everyone. I had never ridden a time trial that long, but I think that without my puncture I would have secured my fifth place.”
The race concludes on Sunday with the final stage, the annual parade into Paris.