After the emotional win for Hugo Houle on Tuesday, could Wednesday match it for excitement? The second of three days in the Pyrenees mountains turned into a mano-a-mano clash between yellow jersey Jonas Vingegaard and double champion Tadej Pogačar on the Peyragudes summit finish. With the victory, Pogačar tied a record with Giuseppe Saronni: at least three stage wins in their first four Grand Tours. Pogačar and Vingegaard both put time into third place Geraint Thomas and their other rivals.
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The Course
The organizers shoehorned four climbs into 130 km. The Cat. 1 Col de Aspin led immediately to a two-step climb of one non-categorized ascent and one Cat. 2. Hard on its heels came Cat. 1 Col de Val Louron-Azet. The summit finish was Cat. 1 Peyragudes, 8.1 km of 7.2 percent.
Stage 17, let’s do this 🏳️
Lots of climbing to come in the second half of today and a cat.1 summit finish ⛰ pic.twitter.com/c39V9OSjV5
— Team BikeExchange-Jayco (@GreenEDGEteam) July 20, 2022
Could Pogačar finally budge Vingegaard? If so, the Slovenian would have to do it with two fewer teammates: Marc Soler finished outside the time limit on Tuesday and Rafal Majka did not start Wednesday. However, remaining teammates Brandon McNulty and Mikkel Bjerg earned their pay on Stage 17.
On Tuesday David Gaudu supplanted Romain Bardet as the top Frenchmen in the GC, and Alexandr Vlasov returned to the top-10 by getting in the breakaway. Here was the top-10 going into Wedneday:
1) Jonas Vingegaard (Denmark/Jumbo-Visma) 64:28:09
2) Tadej Pogačar (Slovenia/UAE-Emirates) +2:22
3) Geraint Thomas (Great Britain/Ineos) +2:43
4) Nairo Quintana (Colombia/Arkea-Samsic) +4:15
5) David Gaudu (France/Groupama-FDJ) +4:24
6) Adam Yates (Great Britain/Ineos) +5:28
7) Louis Meintjes (South Africa/Intermarché etc) +5:46
8) Alexandr Vlasov (Bora-Hansgrohe) +6:18
9) Romain Bardet (France/DSM) +6:37
10) Tom Pidcock (Great Britain/Ineos) +10:11
Several breakaways tried to break loose after the start in Saint-Gaudens. Michael Woods was part of a move with Pidcock and Wout Van Aert that came to naught. Relatively quiet until Wednesday, Woods’ compatriot and teammate Guillaume Boivin stole away with an EF Education-Easypost rider. He was the last Israel-Premier Tech rider to try a breakaway in the 109th edition.
🏴 @owaindoull and 🇨🇦 @Guillaumeboivin
are the next duo to get 10″ over the…
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