Wiggins holds on to fourth place in the Tour de France

Barring accidents on the final stage, Briton Bradley Wiggins will finish fourth in the Tour de France today, behind leader Alberto Contador, Luxembourg's and Lance Armstrong.

Wiggins just held onto fourth spot in the penultimate stage of the race, which climed from Motelimar to the summit of Mont Ventoux.

The race leaders refused to let each other out of their sight all day with Wiggins showing unexpected resiliance to stay with the big guns as the game of cat and mouse unfolded up the mountain.

It will be the same again in Paris with the leaders consolidating their places as the three week race reaches its climax.

WHAT THEY ARE SAYING:Brendan Gallagher, Sunday Telegraph: "The best part of a million people crowded onto the mountain to watch Alberto Contador be annointed as the 2009 champion, to wonder at Lance Armstrong’s enduring competitive will and, if you are British, to shout yourself hoarse as a grimacing Bradley Wiggins clawed his way up to secure a magnificent fourth place overall and equal Robert Millar’s previous British best of 1984."

Richard Williams, the Observer: "They built a theatre fit for a drama of Shakespearean proportions, but someone mislaid the script. A setting and an audience that may have been the most impressive ever assembled for a single day of sport deserved deeds to match the great moments in the history of the Tour de France. The stage cried out for blood and thunder, for deeds of naked heroism and for heartbreaking failure. Instead, the hundreds of thousands of spectators, having turned the winding road up Mont Ventoux into a tunnel of noise, were offered a game of chess."

Lionel Birnie, Sunday Times: "Again Wiggins climbed brilliantly as the race reached what the organisers had hoped would be a grandstand finish on the mountain called “the giant of Provence”. But it was not easy. Twice in the final 3km the 29-year-old had to claw his way back to the group of favourites. When he lost contact with just over a kilometre of the climb to go, he could not recover. Nevertheless, he dug deep to defend his fourth place. Frank Schleck, the rider from Luxembourg, who started the day sixth, overtook fifth-placed Andreas Kloden of Germany, but Wiggins stood firm." ·