Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) took his first career Tour de France stage win on Wednesday as he ascended to victory from the break on stage 17. The reigning Olympic champion caught and passed an attacking Simon Yates (Jayco-AlUla) on the day’s penultimate climb, the Col du Noyer, and held on over the final climb to win the day with a 37-second gap to Yates. Enric Mas (Movistar) took third on the stage.
Well behind the breakaway riders battling for stage honors, there was intrigue in the GC group as well. Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) also attacked on the Col du Noyer and initially dropped the rest of the the GC riders, but Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quick Step) caught up with him on the descent. Evenepoel attacked on the final climb and took a small gap on his GC rivals to the finish, and Pogačar put in a big surge of his own near the line to nab a few seconds on Vingegaard.
Pogačar continues to lead the Tour with four stages to go.
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How it happened
- The breakaway-friendly profile made for a torrid start to the stage. Throughout the early goings, numerous attempts were made to form a break only for things to then get reeled back in. It took more than an hour of racing for the first real move to stick as a quartet got clear ahead of the intermediate sprint.
- With only four riders away, sprint points were still on offer for the pack. Alpecin-Deceuninck led out Jasper Philipsen out, but Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty) pipped him at the line, nabbing fifth-place points behind the breakaway riders. Shortly thereafter, a huge group of more than 40 riders jumped off the front of the bunch (with Yates and Carapaz among them), and at last, the peloton eased off the throttle. The gap to the various breakaway riders rapidly ballooned to up over six minutes.
- The lead quartet acquitted themselves well even with so many chasers behind them, and initial attempts to bridge from the big group came up short before everything changed on the Cat. 1 Col du Noyer. The group of four became six, and then Yates put in a massive surge behind the leaders. Before long, he had caught and passed every other breakaway rider and was solo out front – but Carapaz set off in pursuit of him, riding with Stevie Williams (Israel-Premier Tech) for a time.
- The Ecuadorian dropped Williams and then caught Yates with a few kilometers still to go in the climb, and they rode together briefly before Carapaz put in a big dig. Yates could not follow the move, and Carapaz went up and over the summit solo.
- Eight minutes behind the break, Pogačar put in a stinging attack on the Col du Noyer. Vingegaard initially seemed like he might be able to follow the move but then he began to flag, and Evenepoel sailed past him. Pogačar took a few seconds over the climb as Evenepoel and then Vingegaard settled into chase mode. On the descent, Vingegaard linked up with his Visma teammate Christophe Laporte, who had dropped back from the big break group, and then they joined up with Evenepoel. After a few minutes of determined pursuit, they caught up to Pogačar on the descent.
- Out front, Carapaz cruised up the Superdévoluy finishing climb to secure his first Tour stage win, giving him victories in stages of all three Grand Tours. Behind, Evenepoel attacked and put some daylight between himself and Pogačar and Vingegaard. Closer to the finish, Pogačar put in an attack of his own. When all was said and done, Evenepoel arrived 10 seconds ahead of Pogačar, who arrived two seconds ahead of Vingegaard.
Brief analysis
- After Pogačar crushed the dreams of the breakaway riders in the Pyrenees, the peloton finally allowed the escapees to get clear on stage 17. It took quite a while for things to settle down, but when the big move formed after the intermediate sprint, the pack slowed down quite dramatically, making it clear that the break would battle for the stage.
- Yates and Carapaz both seemed to have the same idea of waiting for the steep stuff to put their talents on display, and it proved to be a winning tactic as they left the huge crowd of other breakaway riders behind on the Col du Noyer. Carapaz was the stronger of the two on the day, and that was that: He won convincingly in the end.
- Pogačar again showed us just how much he loves attacking his rivals, first with his powerful surge on the Col du Noyer and again in the waning moments of the stage. The actual standings didn’t actually change much in the end, but it can’t have been fun for Vingegaard to be dropped on two separate occasions.
- Evenepoel’s gap at the finish was small as well, but Wednesday was the first time at this Tour where the Belgian has looked stronger on the climbs than defending champion Vingegaard. With a time trial to close out the Tour, is Evenepoel daring to dream of taking runner-up honors?
Coming up
The breakaway riders could have another shot at glory on stage 18, which features an up-and-down profile that will probably be too difficult for the purer sprinters but that is not hard enough to spur GC attacks. With a relatively flat finish on tap, expect someone with a strong kick but decent climbing legs to either win from the break or from a reduced peloton.
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