Tour de France 2020: Primoz Roglic extends overall lead to tighten grip on yellow jersey
Roglic finishes second on stage 17 behind Miguel Angel Lopez to close in on his maiden grand tour triumph
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Your support makes all the difference.Miguel Lopez took his first ever Tour de France stage win on the 17th ‘Queen’ stage to move up to third in the GC on the summit of the Col de la Loze as Primoz Roglic retained his yellow jersey from Tadej Pogacar’s hopeful grips in a brutal finale.
Lopez’s efforts on the 21km climb accelerated at the gruelling 24 per cent mark in a solo victory from 3km to go, as Roglic finished just 11 seconds behind. Fellow Slovenian Pogacar lost Roglic’s wheel in the final few metres, conceding more time to see his deficit in second place on the GC to 57 seconds. He will continue to chase down the yellow jersey tomorrow with just under a minute between the two compatriots.
Defending champion Egan Bernal’s withdrawal from the race meant that the stage win was up for contention from the start; the mountainous 170km stage from Grenoble would have favoured the Colombian who retired due to a back and knee injury.
However, it did not phase Ineos Grenadier, with Richard Carapaz managing to fight his way into a breakaway with yesterday’s stage winner Lennard Kamna, Julian Alaphilippe, Dan Martin and Gorka Izaguirre before facing the Col de la Madeleine; the first of two hors categorie climbs of the day.
Carapaz claimed the king of the mountain points on the Madeleine as the first to reach the top, followed by Alaphilippe and Pogacar, and continued to battle up the final climb.
Alaphilippe, Izaguirre and Carapaz started the 21km monster climb Col de la Loze with an advantage of two minutes. Carapaz dominated the trio, dropping the other two and riding a heroic solo feat with 9km to go. He managed to open the gap at the head of the course from 20 to 45 seconds at the 5km mark as the contenders in the peloton weighed each other up.
However, it was another near miss for Carapaz when he was caught with 3km as attacks began on the steepest section of the climb at 24% per cent.
The last 2km saw Lopez going for glory, with the battle of the yellow jersey between the two Slovenians playing out just behind him.
Roglic clung to teammate Sepp Kuss’ wheel before riding away from Pogacar in the last few metres – the latter who gave his all in an attempt to close the gap on the yellow jersey.
Meanwhile, in the green jersey classification, Irishman Sam Bennett was able to extend his lead by 47 points, using Peter Sagan as a lead out to add two points to his advantage in the intermediate sprint.
Pogacar was able to win the king of the mountain polka dot jersey as well as keep his white young rider’s jersey, but his feat for the yellow is still ongoing.
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