BRADLEY Wiggins stamped his authority on the final day of the high mountains to hold on to the yellow jersey and edge closer to becoming the first British cyclist to win the Tour de France.

Movistar's Alejandro Valverde took the stage win into Peyragudes, cresting the summit finish to snatch victory by a mere 19 seconds.

But it was the domination of Wiggins and team-mate Chris Froome on the final climb which imploded the peloton, the Sky duo unleashing their colossal firepower with 3km to go to finish in third and second place respectively.

Wiggins retains his lead in the general classification, 2min 05sec ahead of Froome, with Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas-Cannondale) now 2-41 behind in third and Jurgen van den Broeck (Lotto-Belisol) fourth at 5-53. Defending champion Cadel Evans (BMC) is sixth, 9-57 down.

Today will mark Wiggins' 11th day in the hallowed maillot jaune, no Tour winner since Bernard Hinault in 1981 has taken the lead this early and managed to hold on to it.

All that now lies between Wiggins and being crowned champion in Paris on Sunday is today's 222.5km sprint stage into Brive la Gaillarde and the time trial tomorrow from Bonneval to Chartres.

Wiggins admitted to having been hit by a flood of emotion has he powered through the final kilometres yesterday.

He said: "Once we went over the Peyragudes, I could see everyone was in bits and I still felt great at that point. Froome looked round and said to me: 'He [Nibali] is nailed', so we knew that he wasn't going to attack. That's when I took it up with 3km to go.

"I sort of lost it all then, the concentration and that performance crap went out the window. I allowed myself, perhaps stupidly because the race wasn't over, to think about everything I had done to get to this point, all the people who had helped me.

"Froome was egging me on, but I knew that we didn't have to. I was concentrating more on my own pace; it was a nice feeling."

He added: "I thought about all the criticism. I've taken a lot the last couple of years since I signed with Sky; [people saying] 'He's never going to win the Tour.' Obviously, I haven't won it yet, there's still the time trial to go, but that's the mountains out of the way."

Despite Sky's display of dominance, debate raged over whether, with Wiggins' yellow jersey clearly not under threat, Froome should have been allowed to go for the stage win. The Kenyan-born rider looked strong and appeared to continually look over his shoulder at Wiggins for the nod to go.

Wiggins said: "Chris pos-sibly could have done [it], but I was thinking about other things; I had lost it by then. We have been an incredible team all season. I think we showed here how strong we are. We have one stage tomorrow, the time trial and then we are pretty much there. We are within touching distance now. I think Chris will have his day, 100%, and I will be there to support him every inch of the way when he does."

Europcar's Thomas Voeckler, winner of two stages this year, managed to build an 11-point lead over nearest rival Fredrik Kessiakoff (Astana) in mountains classification. Voeckler, who famously wore yellow for 10 days in both the 2004 and 2011, is now almost certain to claim the King of the Mountains title.

Peter Sagan (Liquigas-Cannondale) holds a 102-point lead in the green jersey points classification over nearest rival Andre Greipel (Lotto-Belisol).