Tour de France Stage 17: Geschke wins, Contador crashes, van Garderen abandons

Simon Geschke of Giant Alpecin has won Stage 17 of the Tour de France at Pra Loup on a day of drama in the Alps with a crash costing Tinkoff-Saxo's Alberto Contador time against his rivals for the overall. BMC Racing's Tejay van Garderen, third this morning, abandoned through illness, while Team Sky's Chris Froome retains a lead of more than 3 minutes over Movistar's Nairo Quintana. Geraint Thomas, meanwhile, rises to fourth overall.

Geschke, one of 28 riders in the day's break, got away on the penultimate climb of the 161km stage from Digne-les-Bains and stayed clear of a rapidly closing Andrew Talansky of Cannondale-Garmin, who finished 32 seconds behind, with Etixx-Quick Step's Rigoberto Uran third.

Behind them, battle was joined in the group comprising the men challenging for the overall, whittled down to just five riders - Froome, Contador, defending champion Vincenzo Nibali of Astana, plus the Movistar pair of Quintana and Alejandro Valverde - on the descent from the Col d'Allos ahead of the final climb.

Quintana tried to get away from Froome inside the closing kilometre and beat the race leader to the line, without taking time out of him.

The departue of van Garderen means Valverde now moves third on GC behind Froome and Quintana, while Contador will be left counting the cost of a fall halfway down that tricky final descent that saw him distanced by his rivals.

The Spaniard, looking for his third Tour de France overall victory, is now fifth overall, 6 minutes 40 seconds behind Froome and 6 seconds behind Thomas.

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Stage winner Simon Geschke of Giant-Alpecin

It's incredible to win a stage of the Tour de France. I've been dreaming about it since I started cycling. But it wasn't easy. I'm not a sprinter, I'm not a climber, I'm just an all-rounder. I got selected by the team to help in the first week and take my chance in the second or third week.

It's a different tactic to race for a bunch sprint victory or the stage on the cobblestones with John Degenkolb or a top 10 with Warren Barguil.

We were used to winning the first stage with Marcel Kittel in the past two years. That took pressure off the team. It's been harder to reach success this time but we never lost hope and the atmosphere in the team was always good. Nobody expected me to be the first stage winner of the team.

The downhill was really challenging but it's part of cycling. I was at the limit at the top of the climb. In every curve, I paid attention and it went well.

Race leader Chris Froome of Team Sky

Downhill has never been a weakness for me. I didn't take any risk today but other riders have had to and some of them have crashed. It helped me to know the downhill of Col d'Allos, through the Dauphiné and the reconnaissance of the Alpine stages.

It's a good day for us. Unfortunately it's a bad one for Tejay van Garderen who had the potential to make the podium in Paris. His abandon combined with Alberto Contador's crash puts Geraint Thomas in the top 5, which is fantastic for us. It would be a dream to have him on the podium in Paris as well but for now we remain focused on the yellow jersey.

I wouldn't say my rivals are desperate but I can see they take more risks … I have the feeling that their tactic is all or nothing. It gives me a taste of what I can expect in the next three days. They'll attack me more and more, especially Contador after he crashed today. But they're running out of opportunities and I feel pretty good at the moment.

Nairo Quintana of Movistar, second on GC

I couldn't go faster in the downhill of Col d'Allos. I've seen the crashes so Alejandro and I preferred to play safe, for Alejandro to make the podium and for the teams’ classification.

Today I was almost at 100%. I didn't manage to dethrone Froome but now there'll be stages that suit me even better. Climbs will be longer and harder. I'll have to attack from further out. We'll keep attacking. Our team is very strong. Our goal remains the yellow jersey.

Defending champion Vincenzo Nibali of Astana, 7th overall, 8 minutes 4 seconds behind Froome

He [Froome] was really good. He managed to control things. We attacked him several times, me, Quintana, Valverde. He came back on his own or with the help of his team-mates. It was really hard to beat him. We could not do any better.

Today my legs responded well and my team worked well. We tried to launch attacks. We still have two hard stages ahead of us. We'll have to play it day by day.

Tinkoff-Saxo’s Alberto Contador, who lost 2 minutes 14 seconds to Froome today

My wheel slipped and I fell. We tried to fix my bike but it wasn’t working and I took Peter’s bike. I tried to descend as well as I could but at the bottom of the climb I had to change back to one of my own bikes to minimise the losses.

Cycling is like this, sometimes you do well sometimes you don’t. But right now the most important thing is to recover.

Jim Ochowicz, team director of BMC Racing, on losing Tejay van Garderen

It's sport, it happens in every sport. We lost our GC contender for the podium, we'll have to refocus tonight and set up new goals for the rest of the Tour. We still have four big days, we're not going away.

We’ll be there fighting for something new. Tejay is disappointed. He would have liked to finish the Tour. He's got a lot for pressure on his shoulders, he's feeling the pain. He understands its win or lose and he'll fight back.

We started the stage thinking he would be OK. I feel bad for Tejay, for the team. We start over tomorrow, we've still got goals.