The final stage is our time trial up the Col D'Eze that towers over the resort of Nice as ever the finish town for this race. It is a fairly short test at 9km that should take the riders about 20 minutes to get up it.
This should suit the climbers and indeed Suaza is our leader before we get to the main GC men.
It's a very impressive time from the climber drafted in by Vesuvio - Accumalux to help Andy Schleck. Alas this ploy did not do much good on stage six where the Schleck lost his leaders jersey.
He also lost time in yesterdays windy toughman stage, so work to be done on the rider used to maverick type rides for his former team.
The times here suggest that the first part of the course is suited to pure climbers with the second half more suiting pure Chrono men. Talanskiy for example moving up several places in between checkpoints.
Suaza's top time doesn't last long however as a the better all round rider Faiers beats the best time by two seconds.
He like Suaza lost time in yesterdays stage, but has the young Brit has shown himself to be a decent climber in the previous stages. This has been a tough race for Good Energy's young climbers but certainly worthwhile experience.
His time lasts a little while before it is completely obliterated by Rujano.
He beats Faiers time by 27 seconds proving that big gains can be made by riders feeling good even in 10km of climbing!
The state of play going into the top 23 riders on GC:
We can see from Chrono one that a lot of the riders close on GC are quite evenly matched with only Rujano sticking his head out. Indeed Becherovka - Kiwibank seem to have taken the right medicine this morning as Velits also flies up the Col.
Indeed the the Slovak (not Slovene!) manages a new smashing time of 18.53. The time is good enough to displace Pinot on GC.
The Frenchman will nether-the-less retain the Young jersey which is was very comfortably leading.
Keinath defends his GC 11th place well with a very good ride of 18.55, just two seconds shy of Velits.
He has 26 seconds to make up on Brambilli, the Italian though manages to defend his GC 10th just about losing 18 seconds to Keinath.
A similar story for 9th on GC who as you would expect holds off Brambilli and Keinath with what is now a so so ride of 19.05.
He showed some of his best climbing for some time on the slopes to La Chaud but could not kick on the next day and suffers due to sluggish hilly stages.
Dekker at times has ridden very defensively. He like Fothen cannot break the 19 minutes like Velits and Keinath did which underlines the feeling that the Dutchman was not quite at his best this week.
Van Den Broeck has been quite quiet this week. He managed to cling on, on the two mountain stages. He really did look tired come the end of them - the climbs here just a bit too much for the Belgian. Still he finishes ahead of Velits, Dekker, Fothen which will be seen as a success by his upbeat manager.
His time again a little shy of 19 minutes - with 19.08. Still Velits at 18.53 our leader. However Sicard shows his improved form with a new best.
His new best is 18.46 and could be a stage win contender - the French darling should arguably be battling for a podium in this race. But he missed the moves on the hilly stages and bonked badly on the queen stage. He cannot catch the top five today despite his rollicking ride up the 'Eze'.
In fact another rider who has suffered a disappointing race has saved his best for last - 18.27, 19 seconds faster than Sicard goes Spilak.
Finally (and too late really) Spilak arrives and he needed 9 seconds to overhaul Nibali for 4th on GC and indeed he does so despite a battling 18.49 from Nibbles.
Schleck is one second slower than Nibali.
He hasn't been able to finish this race off and his time is not enough to put pressure on Taaramae who goes five seconds faster than Schleck.
So Taaramae needed 31 seconds to eclipse Martin. The Irishman suffered a hard day today missing 19 minutes but still only lost 16 seconds to Taaramae (and just 11 to Schleck).
