on stage twelve, putting him 51 seconds down. He struggled through the rest of the second half of the race. He ended up fourth overall, finishing over ten minutes behind the race winner, Alberto Contador (). 2013: First Tour de France victory Froome's 2013 season began at the Tour of Oman, where he took the race lead on stage four, finishing second to Rodríguez on the summit finish of Jebel Akhdar. Froome then won the following stage to extend his lead, out-sprinting Contador and Rodríguez. He finished the race taking the overall classification, his first stage race win of his career, 27 seconds ahead of Contador, with Cadel Evans twelve seconds further back. He also won the points classification. Froome then led at the Tirreno–Adriatico in March, where he won the fourth stage after countering an attack by Contador, rider Nibali and 's Mauro Santambrogio on the final climb to Prati di Tivo. Froome lost time on eventual winner Nibali on the penultimate stage, finishing the race in second place. Froome returned to action, and to the top step of the rostrum, in the Critérium International. After finishing fourth in the short second-stage time trial, he passed teammate Richie Porte to win the third and final stage. In so doing, he overtook Porte in the general classification. In late April, Froome won the prologue of the Tour de Romandie in Le Châble, Switzerland, taking the leader's jersey, with a six-second gap over Andrew Talansky of . He remained in the yellow leader's jersey throughout the entire race, increasing his advantage over his rivals to almost a minute with a strong performance in the penultimate queen stage. Near the end of that stage, after losing his support riders in the peloton, Froome gave solo chase to breakaway rider Simon Špilak and after catching him, worked with the Slovenian to maintain and extend their lead on the peloton and improve their general classification standings. Špilak won the stage, which catapulted him into second place in the overall, with Froome on his wheel in second. In the final individual time trial stage Froome took third place, increasing his lead and winning his third race of the season. Froome's final warm up race before the Tour de France, for which he was favourite, was the Critérium du Dauphiné at the beginning of June. He sat second overall behind 's Rohan Dennis after coming third