Michael Matthews will on Sunday ride into Paris to become the third Australian to win the Tour de France points classification green jersey.

Matthews (Team Sunweb) took a leisurely ride around Marseille on Saturday, preserving his energy in the individual time trial in an effort to claim glory in Sunday's bunch sprint on the Champs-Élysées.

The final stage to Paris – this year a largely ceremonial 103 kilometres from Montgeron – has no bearing on the points classification after Matthews secured an unassailable lead ahead of Marseille. 

The Canberran need only arrive in one piece in the capital to continue the strong tradition of Australian riders in the green jersey competition. Robbie McEwen (2002, 2004, 2006) and Baden Cooke (2003) are previous winners, while Stuart O'Grady was runner-up four times. 

Matthews will celebrate with Subweb teammate, the Frenchman Warren Barguil, who will ride into Paris in the red and white polka dots as King of the Mountains.

Briton Simon Yates, riding for the Australian Orica-Scott team, has already secured the white jersey for best young rider.   

The crowning glory, though, will be saved for Chris Froome, who will arrive into Paris as Tour de France champion for the fourth time in five years.

His achievement sees him go one better than three-time champion Greg LeMond, who on Saturday said Froome's rivals needed to work on their time trialling if they wanted to break the Briton's domination.

The Team Sky rider wrapped up his fourth title on Saturday after beating Rigoberto Uran (Cannondale-Drapac) and Romain Bardet (AG2R-La Mondiale) comprehensively in the final solo effort against the clock.

"If you look at the riders behind Chris Froome, none of them is a time trialist. He does not have a lot of competition when it comes to time trials," said LeMond.

"If you look at the top 10, most of them are never going to become time trialists unless they work on it, so most of them will never win the Tour."

Uran lost 25 seconds to Froome over the 22.5 kilometres on Saturday, while Bardet lost a massive one minute 57 seconds, conceding second place to Uran and remaining on the podium with just a one second advantage over Sky's Mikel Landa in fourth.

"That's the problem. We have a race for second place," said LeMond, a Tour winner in 1986, 1989 and 1990.

"You need a guy like Tom Dumoulin," he said of the Dutch Sunweb rider, an excellent time trialist who won the Giro d'Italia this year but skipped the Tour.

"Dumoulin is the guy who needs to challenge Froome. I don't see anybody right who is going to be that challenger."

LeMond did not discuss Australian Richie Porte (BMC Racing), an accomplished time trialist who crashed out of the Tour on stage nine. 

Fairfax Media with Reuters