early part of the climb, before Froome surged clear of Contador with remaining and caught Quintana, who had attacked earlier in the climb. The pair worked together to put time into their rivals, before Froome dropped Quintana with remaining and soloed to the finish. This gave Froome a lead of four minutes and fourteen seconds over Mollema in second place, with Contador a further eleven seconds back. Froome also regained the lead in the mountains classification. He won the stage seventeen time trial, finishing the course from Embrun to Chorges in 51 minutes 33 seconds, with Contador coming in nine seconds behind him, in second place. Froome defended his lead during the Alpine stages, extending his overall lead as Mollema and Contador dropped back. Froome won the general classification on 21 July with a final time of 83 hours, 56 minutes and 40 seconds; he was 4 minutes and 20 seconds ahead of second-placed Quintana. He was also King of the Mountains for six stages; however, he ultimately finished second to Quintana in that classification. Froome's overall win and stage victories in the Tour win put him at the top of the UCI World Tour ranking, with 587, ahead of Sagan on 409. Partly because the 2013 Tour was the first since Lance Armstrong's admission of doping, such questions were asked of Froome. He insisted that he and his team were clean and stated that the questioning saddened him. Froome was drug tested during the Tour and Team Sky principal Dave Brailsford offered the World Anti-Doping Agency all performance data they had on Froome as evidence. In October Froome was named winner of the prestigious Vélo d'Or award for the best rider of the year. 2014: Defending champion As defending champion for the first time, Froome started his 2014 season by again winning the Tour of Oman. After some minor illnesses and back problems, which meant he missed Tirreno–Adriatico, his next stage race was the Tour de Romandie, again as defending champion, which he won by 28 seconds ahead of Špilak, with the two riders placing first and second in that race for the second consecutive year. He also won the final stage of the race, an individual time trial, finishing a second faster than three-time time trial world champion Martin. To celebrate the Tour de France moving from Britain to France in July, Froome rode a bicycle through the