When the Tour de France returned to the Alps on Friday’s Stage 19, finishing 10th on Cat. 1 climb Isola 2000 moved Derek Gee up to 8th on GC. Yellow jersey Tadej Pogačar padded his lead via his fourth win of the 111th edition and 15th of his career. The Slovenian now leads Jonas Vingegaard by 5:03.
The Course
Back to the Alps! The first HC climb came 22 km into the 144.6-km stage. The Col de Vars was almost 19 km long but not terribly steep. The second HC, Cime de la Bonette, was longer and steeper. The summit finish ascent of Isola 2000 tilted up for 16.1 km at 7.1 percent.
We’re in for a huge day at the #TDF2024!
Col de Vars, Cime de la Bonette – taking the riders at 2802 meters – and Isola 2000 come with the promise of some memorable battles between the GC contenders! pic.twitter.com/SrxrwTpUju
— Soudal Quick-Step Pro Cycling Team (@soudalquickstep) July 19, 2024
A Big GC Day
It was the beginning of a crucial GC long weekend. Could the yellow jersey put more time into Vingegaard? Could Remco Evenepoel start to pull back the 1:58 deficit to second place? The rest of the top-10 was tight: 33 second separated Joao Almeida in fourth from Carlos Rodriguez in sixth, with Mikel Landa in the middle. Ninth-place Derek Gee trailed eighth place Giulio Ciccone by 24 seconds and had to be wary of Santiago Buitrago, 20 seconds behind the Canadian.
But it would be a few guys a little lower in the GC who comprised the day’s breakaway. Fourteenth place Matteo Jorgenson and 15th place Simon Yates were the highest on the list, but it would be Stage 17 winner and 17th place Richard Carapaz who would scoop up maximum KOM points on Col de Vars. It looked they would all be jumping over 11th place Felix Gall, who was jettisoned from the UAE-Emirates-led peloton.
At the peak of Cime de la Bonette, Carapaz was the first of the six riders to crest 3:30 ahead of the 18-strong peloton, jumping over Pogačar in the King of the Mountains classification by 20 points.
On the 35-km descent the leading sextet pulled out a little more time.
Isola 2000
Vingegaard had two satellite riders up the road, Jorgenson and Wilco Kelderman. Would he press?
Immediately one of the fugitive flowers wilted. Giro d’Italia 2022 champion Jai Hindley went next. Jorgenson attacked. Carapaz and Yates toiled to parry this thrust. Ciccone lost contact with Gee. Rodriguez too. Up ahead, Jorgenson was still solo. When…
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