Chris Froome on verge of Tour de France glory after penultimate stage Link to video: Tour de France 2013: Quintana wins stage 20 with Froome set for glory On Sunday Chris Froome will ride up the Champs Elysées as the Tour de France winner, having finished third in stage 20 here behind the discovery of the race, Nairo Quintana, who rode away from the race leader a kilometre from the finish, and the Spaniard Joaquim Rodríguez. That did not disturb Froome who knew he had the race won, and crossed the line making a thumbs-up gesture. "The race for the overall is done, for us, it's all over," he said. The climb was hard, because Quintana and Rodríguez were setting a fast pace, but when I got to the two kilometres to go mark, I knew that it was finished, that the race was as good as won. Behind Froome, Quintana hit the jackpot: the 23-year old Colombian was already wearing the white jersey of best young rider, and his victory moved him up to second overall in place of Alberto Contador, who had not looked at his easy in any of the race's mountain top finishes and dropped to fourth, with Rodríguez moving up to third, pushing him off the podium. The polka-dot jersey for the King of the Mountains also went to Quintana, thanks to the double points on offer at the finish, making him the first Colombian to win the title in the Tour since Mauricio Soler in 2007; Quintana's runner-up position is Colombia's best ever in the Tour, outstripping Fabio Parra's third overall in 1988. Few riders manage to finish on the podium in their debut Tours; the last to achieve this was Jan Ullrich in 1996. Quintana rode the climb perfectly, making his final move at the kilometre mark after remaining in the slipstream of Froome and Rodriguez, who did the bulk of the pacemaking in the knowledge that once Contador had slipped out of the reckoning, third place was his for the taking. This was confirmation of Quintana's immense potential, which has seen him win the Tour de l'Avenir for under-25s and the Tour of the Basque Country. It also makes him the man, on paper, most likely to threaten Froome in next year's race. For most of this brief stage, Quintana's Movistar team had set the pace on the front of the peloton, and soon after the foot of the Semnoz, the efforts of Alberto Rui Costa and Alejandro Valverde whittled the leaders down to just seven. Rodríguez and Quintana sprang clear with more than eight kilometres still to climb, as Contador began to struggle, and Froome made an electric acceleration to join them. That decided the first three places on the stage, and in the overall standings, and behind it was every man for himself. In the context of Froome's first Tour de France win - which can now be spoken about as a certainty - the ease with which he closed the gap to Rodríguez and Quintana on the Semnoz simply provided more confirmation that the Kenyan-born Briton has been the best climber in the race, as well as one of the best time triallists. Usually that is enough to guarantee a rider victory, because the two disciplines are so hard to marry, and that has been the case this year. It is the polar opposite of the 2012 race, when Bradley Wiggins was the strongest against the watch and merely one of the best climbers. Before the serious action began, there was time for Pierre Rolland to make one final attempt to win the King of the Mountains jersey. It was what the French term un baroud d'honneur, a final flourish of the rapier in a doomed cause. Rolland had started the stage wearing the polka-dot jersey by virtue of his being in second place in the standings behind Froome, who obviously has to wear the yellow, but he was a single point behind the Briton. That was enough to excite the French media, who have salivated when a Frenchman wears the jersey since the bad old days of Richard Virenque, but Rolland said time and again on Friday night that with 50 points on offer on top of the Semnoz - the Tour brought in a rule last year that the final ascent carries double points - he would be unlikely to win the jersey unless Froome and company permitted an escape to get several minutes clear. It was worth a try nonetheless, so as the peloton neared the outskirts of Annecy, Rolland was already ahead, alongside the car brandishing the start flag, which is withdrawn when the field reaches "kilometre zero" and racing begins. Once the flag was pulled in, he went flat out. The upshot was that a small group formed around him and contested the early hill "primes," with Rolland taking the bulk of the points, at one time getting so desperate that he ran the Basque Igor Antón into the spectators at the side of the road, to stop him coming past. It was a glorious little cameo, but almost irrelevant once Froome and company stretched their legs on the Semnoz. No Tour win can be described as routine or ordinary, but there will be some special touches to ensure the 100th Tour has an extraordinary close. Not only will Froome and the other finishers ride all the way up the Champs and around the Arc de Triomphe, the race winner will do so in a unique golden tunic. The PR people would like this to be referred to in the same reverent tones as the golden fleece - the quest for which has been a constant Tour metaphor since the jersey was first worn in 1919 - but rather spoiled the impression by revealing that the jersey will be sequinned. That seems a trifle Moulin Rouge for the world's toughest endurance race and it is easy to imagine the man who dreamed up the maillot jaune, that old austerian Henri Desgrange, turning in his grave, but in another sense a sequinned yellow jersey is entirely apposite given the way that the Tour's 100 editions, have frequently married tradition and sporting endeavour with a garish lack of taste.