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Tour de France Stage 19: Primoz Roglic takes final mountain stage and pushes Chris Froome off the podiumTour de France logo on yellow 3x2

Tour de France Stage 19: Primoz Roglic takes final mountain stage and pushes Chris Froome off the podium

Geraint Thomas finishes second and extends overall lead
by Alex Bowden
Fri, Jul 27, 2018 17:09
9

Primoz Roglic took victory on stage 19 of the Tour de France after forcing a gap during a breath-taking descent to the line.  It was the Slovenian’s second Tour stage win after taking stage 17 last year. Geraint Thomas (Team Sky) finished second, fractionally extending his lead over Tom Dumoulin (Sunweb) ahead of the final time trial after picking up six bonus seconds.

The 200.5km stage from Lourdes to Laruns was the final mountain stage of the race and a last opportunity for the out-and-out climbers to take time over stronger time trialists.

Ilnur Zakarin and Mikel Landa duly attacked the favourites group on the Col du Tourmalet with over 100km of the stage remaining and Romain Bardet swiftly followed.

Jakob Fuglsang and Rafal Majka then joined them to create an impressive group – which only grew stronger when they hoovered up a few of the riders who’d been away in the early break.

These included Julian Alaphilippe, who secured the mountains classification and in so doing set a record as the first rider to have taken maximum points on four hors categorie climbs during the same Tour.

The final climb, the Col d’Aubisque, brought a series of attacks from within the yellow jersey group – in particular from LottoNL-Jumbo team-mates Primoz Roglic and Steven Kruijswijk.

In an apparent repeat of Wednesday’s stage, Froome was briefly dropped – but on this occasion team-mate Egan Bernal hauled him back to the group.

The high pace meant that by the summit all the early attackers had been caught, bar Rafal Majka, who had just a 10-second advantage with a long descent ahead of him.

With former ski-jumper Roglic unsurprisingly willing to push the pace, he was soon caught and the Slovenian continued from there, eventually opening a gap.

 

 

By the finish, Roglic’s advantage was 19 seconds, which meant that he displaced Froome from the podium and now sits just 19 seconds behind Dumoulin.

Thomas sprinted for bonus seconds and sits in a comfortable position with tomorrow’s time trial the only remaining place where time will be won and lost.

2018 Tour de France
Primoz Roglic
Alex Bowden

Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.

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9 comments

Avatar
don simon fbpe | 6 years ago
0 likes

And to think that there were people who said that Geraint couldn't descend or handle a bike.

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Beecho | 6 years ago
0 likes

Any Sagan news?

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jaysa replied to Beecho | 6 years ago
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Beecho wrote:

Any Sagan news?

Eurosport said he was plugging away ok and expected to finish in time, though didn't see him.

Avatar
jaysa | 6 years ago
4 likes

Anti-climax? I found that a fascinating stage with lots going on, and for once Sky not doing the driving.

Lovely descending style by Roglic. I'd hoped Bardet might get away to make up for his disappointments this year.

And with 30 seconds between DuMoulin, Roglic and Froome, and one of those not on the podium, tomorrow should be fireworks...

Avatar
BehindTheBikesheds replied to jaysa | 6 years ago
1 like
jaysa wrote:

Anti-climax? I found that a fascinating stage with lots going on, and for once Sky not doing the driving.

Lovely descending style by Roglic. I'd hoped Bardet might get away to make up for his disappointments this year.

And with 30 seconds between DuMoulin, Roglic and Froome, and one of those not on the podium, tomorrow should be fireworks...

As per TD and Dan Martin, he certainly got a tow from the moto, this is enough for him to break the elastic, as much as TD was sprinting on a straight he couldn't catch Roglic simply sitting on the top tube.

Sorry but whilst it might not have been so obvious to Gary Imlach the difference between riding behind a Moto and behind that man who can simply be tucked in more often over that period of time is significant.

For safety and for fairness we need to get shot of the motos and come up with a better solution.

Avatar
Beecho replied to BehindTheBikesheds | 6 years ago
1 like
BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

For safety and for fairness we need to get shot of the motos and come up with a better solution.

Front and rear cameras on every bike a la F1?

Avatar
Yorkshire wallet replied to Beecho | 6 years ago
3 likes
Beecho wrote:
BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

For safety and for fairness we need to get shot of the motos and come up with a better solution.

Front and rear cameras on every bike a la F1?

Don't see why not really. They keep saying they need ballast to reach 6.8kg and there you have it, some ballast with a use.

 

 

Avatar
BehindTheBikesheds replied to Beecho | 6 years ago
0 likes
Beecho wrote:
BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

For safety and for fairness we need to get shot of the motos and come up with a better solution.

Front and rear cameras on every bike a la F1?

Why not, given the cost of the motos plus paying the people to do that I think it's not that much of a big deal costs wise. 

For me there simply needs a total rethink on the whole moto/camera thing, it comes up every race, not just the grand tours, it's not just the advantage it can gove to a particular rider and it's obvious there are times when certain riders seem to get a friendly helping hand i.e. deliberate and also the non deliberate but purely by the fact they are there they are giving a tow to a rider/s.

But for me it's simply about the safety, I watched two police riders go slightly off the road to squeeze past within inches of riders yesterday, whilst that might not be seen as a big deal there was simply no leeway for the what if and given the number of incidents it's not a matter of if it's a when.

Avatar
Yorkshire wallet | 6 years ago
0 likes

Bit of an anti-climax with Dumoulin unable to make any sort of break. Unless he does the fastest TT in history tomorrow it's pretty much done.  

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