Cycling: Briton claims yellow jersey and tilt at Tour podium

Christopher Froome crosses the Tour's seventh stage ahead of Australia's Cadel Evans (left) and Bradley Wiggins (rear). Photo / AP

British cycling passed a great landmark yesterday as Sky's Bradley Wiggins seized his first Tour de France lead, taking a step towards becoming Britain's only winner in its 108-year-history. His teammate Chris Froome also clinched the stage win.

Wiggins became the first Briton to claim the leader's yellow jersey since David Millar won the Tour's prologue in 2000. Back then Millar was never tipped as a possible podium finisher or winner; with Wiggins it is just the opposite.

Quite apart from confirming his status as favourite, it is almost as important that Wiggins and Team Sky have taken the race by the scruff of the neck in the mountains, two days before the Tour reaches its first time trial - on paper the Londoner's favourite terrain.

"Whatever happens from now on, just taking the jersey is a massive thing," said Wiggins. "I have so much respect for this jersey. It's something I dreamed about since a child.

"A year ago I was lying in a hospital in France with a broken collarbone after crashing out in the first week. Now I'm leading the biggest race in the world. And the way we rode as team shows that we're well on track now, we'll try and keep the jersey, and we've shown we'll be able to defend it every day as best as possible."

Quite apart from Wiggins' virtuoso solo performance, Sky have shown clearly that they are the strongest team in the mountains, shredding the front group to just five riders in just 6km of short, severe climbing.

The two key rivals were the 2010 Tour of Spain winner, Vincenzo Nibali, and last year's Tour champion, Cadel Evans - the only rider to stage an attack. That finally served as a launchpad for Froome to charge away.

For Froome, victory was confirmation that his surprise second place overall in the Tour of Spain last year was no fluke. For Wiggins, the damage inflicted on his rivals - Evans being a big exception - was also important.

As soon as Sky powered up the pace at the foot of the agonisingly steep Planche des Belle Filles climb, deep in the Vosges, the big players began dropping off the back. First to go was Levi Leipheimer of the US and halfway up Fabian Cancellara, the leader since Liege, opted to ease back.

But just a dozen riders were left with 2.5km to go. Frank Schleck was next to crack, then Samuel Sanchez.

Normally the Tour's first climb is where the favourites play a game of cat and mouse, estimating their rivals' condition for future attacks. Instead, the pace set down by Sky's Michael Rogers, then Richie Porte and then Froome was so strong that the damage was done at the back of the bunch, with nobody barring Evans able to put in the briefest of challenges.

The closest of the top pre-race favourites, 50 seconds back, was the double Tour of Spain winner Denis Menchov, with Sanchez at 1min 30 sec and the rest even further adrift. Sky, on the other hand, now have Wiggins in the lead and two other riders - Froome and Rogers - in the top 10 overall. Froome has even taken hold of the King of the Mountains jersey.

"I never expected the gaps to be so big, I was a little bit surprised that nobody could attack, but I was dictating the pace. I knew that if someone wanted to attack off that pace, they would have to go a lot harder," said Wiggins. "I was surprised there were only four of us going round that final corner, I thought there would be 15 of us. So that's a good sign."

Wiggins even revealed that he had asked Froome to ease back a bit, in order to be sure that his teammate could go for the stage win. "I told Froome not to go too hard, we knew we weren't going to get rid of Cadel, so I told him to save himself a bit. It's rare for Tour finishes to be that steep, so for him to win the stage after his unlucky start was really great."

Isolated from his BMC squad, Evans, arguably Wiggins' most dangerous rival, had barely crossed the line before he admitted he was on the back foot: "With a team that strong, he's going to be hard to beat."

- Independent