Friday’s third from last Tour de France stage was supposed to one for the fast men who had clambered their way over mountains during the last week. But it was Christophe Laporte stealing the day’s flowers with a terrific move in the final two kilometres of Stage 19, giving France its first win of the 109th edition and Jumbo-Visma its fifth victory. His teammate Jonas Vingegaard kept the yellow jersey. Hugo Houle was 20th on the day and preliminary results have him up to 19th in GC.
You can watch the 2022 Tour de France at FloBikes.
The Course
There were two Cat. 4 climbs in the final third of 188.3 km, but Friday belonged to the sprinters.
An almost flat stage today at the #TDF2022, from Castelnau-Magnoac to Cahors, over an undulating 188.3km course.
Is this the day of the sprinters or will the breakaway take the glory after three hard days in the mountains? pic.twitter.com/u1rUn5Uh2W
— Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl Team (@qst_alphavinyl) July 22, 2022
Only a quintet of fugitives bothered to light out for glory on Stage 19.
🏁 133KM
Cahors is a way away and the leaders have 46″ over the peloton
La route est encore longue avant d’arriver à Cahors et l’échappée compte 46″ d’avance sur le peloton
🇺🇸 @QuinnSimmons9
🇩🇪 @PolittNils
🇸🇮 @matmohoric
🌮 @TacovanderHoorn
🇩🇰 @MikkelHonore #TDF2022 pic.twitter.com/ZwjcUXPQnw— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 22, 2022
One of them pulled the parachute and midway through the day, the remaining foursome held only a minute’s advantage, sprint teams like Lotto-Soudal pulling the peloton.
The Cat. 4 slopes of Côte de la cité médiévale de Lauzerte divided the breakaway in half, and then soon it was just young American serial-fugitive Quinn Simmons forging on alone over Côte de Saint-Daunès. Crosswinds split the peloton, but the riders were reunited.
Simmons’ capture elicited several moves, including one from Pogačar and then one containing Antoine Duchesne and Hugo Houle.
A trio skipped clear, prompting Peter Sagan’s TotalEnergies crew to assume the pacemaking with Lotto-Soudal. For many kilometres Fred Wright, Jasper Stuyven and Alexis Gougeard held them off by 30 seconds. More teams contributed to yank back the fugitives. With 4 km to go, the gap was only 10 seconds.
It was white-knuckle stuff going under the red kite. Laporte attacked from the peloton, joined the break,…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Canadian Cycling Magazine…