Alejandro Valverde's team Movistar showed that they could hurt Chris Froome. They isolated (meaning, he was left without a teammate and surrounded by rivals) the yellow for most of the race but they never could apply the coup de grace to the Brit. Except for the four half-hearted attacks on the last climb byValverde's teammate, Nairo Quintana, and whom Froome responded coolly, the race was exceptionally controlled by Froome&Froome alone.
The biggest loser was Froome's teammate and erstwhile 2nd overall, Richie Porte. Porte had a jour sans, or a bad day and lost 18min and his high placing. The minor losers were the contenders like Valverde, CadelEvans and AlbertoContador, who failed to take advantage of the situation. According to the director of Movistar, their reason for their tactic was to isolate Porte, not to unseat Froome and move Valverde to 2nd overall. However, I believe that it was obvious that Movistar and the other teams were simply on a survival mode and could do nothing more against the strength of Froome.
The potential problem for Froome at that point was a mechanical one and without any teammate to give him their bike or their wheels, he'd be left to chase alone against the pack.
The biggest winner was Dan Martin, who attacked after Quintana's forays and won the stage. But why was he allowed to go away? Well, he was almost three minutes behind overall, it wasn't Froome's responsibility to bring him back but those behind him at overall. I also believed thatFroome should felt relieved that Martin, followed by Jakob Fulgsang later, made the attack since he wouldn't burn his matches unnecessarily.
I would love to be a fly in the wall in team Sky's and team Movistar's post race assessment. I'm sure it would be very interesting.
For those who thought that this race was over, think again. For those who doubt the "cleanliness" of Sky, Froome has this to say (about Porte & his team's absence): "They're just humans".