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Daniel Ostanek

Tour de France: Vingegaard dashes Pogacar's GC hopes on stage 17 across Col de la Loze

Race leader Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) crosses the finish line on stage 17 in fourth place, and distances all rivals the 1 (Image credit: Anne-Christine POUJOULAT / AFP Getty Images)
Felix Gall (AG2R Citroën) charges toward the finish on Col de la Loze in a solo break (Image credit: Marco BERTORELLO / AFP Getty Images)
Felix Gall celebrates the win on stage 17 (Image credit: Anne-Christine POUJOULAT / AFP Getty Images)
Felix Gall (AG2R Citroën) reacts as he wins stage 17 (Image credit: Anne-Christine POUJOULAT / AFP Getty Images)
Simon Yates (Jayco AlUla) crosses the finish line in second place on stage 17 (Image credit: Anne-Christine POUJOULAT / AFP Getty Images)
Pello Bilbao (Bahrain Victorious) finishes third on the queen stage (Image credit: Anne-Christine POUJOULAT / AFP Getty Images)
Race leader Jonas Vingegaard crosses the finish line of stage 17 in fourth place (Image credit: Getty Images)
Best young rider Tadej Pogačar follows the wheel of UAE Team Emirates teammate Marc Soler to the finish line (Image credit: Marco BERTORELLO / AFP Getty Images)
Marc Soler puts an arm on teammate Tadej Pogačar as UAE Team Emirates duo cross the finish line at Courchevel 7:37 off the winning pace, and well back of race leader Jonas Vingegaard (Image credit: Michael Steele/Getty Images)
Tadej Pogacar of UAE Team Emirates reacts after the stage 17 finish where he could not match accelerations of race leader Jonas Vingegaard (Image credit: Thibault Camus / Pool Getty Images)
AG2R Citroën Team's Felix Gall in a lone breakaway on the ascent of Col de la Loze in the final kilometres of the 17th stage (Image credit: Marco BERTORELLO / AFP Getty Images)
Austrian rider Felix Gall (AG2R Citroën) launches solo attack on the ascent of Col de la Loze with under 13km to the finish (Image credit: Marco BERTORELLO / AFP Getty Images)
Jumbo-Visma's Jonas Vingegaard endured a hot day in the saddle to finish fourth on stage 17 and extend his GC lead (Image credit: Thomas SAMSON / AFP Getty Images)
Australian Jack Haig of Bahrain Victorious leads the breakaway on the ascent of Col de la Loze (Image credit: Tim de Waele/Getty Images)
The peloton on the ascent of the Col de la Loze as fans cheer (Image credit: Marco BERTORELLO / AFP Getty Images)
Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) rides in yellow jersey group on the lower slopes of Col de la Loze (Image credit: Thomas SAMSON / AFP Getty Images)
Ben O'Connor leads AG2R Citroën teammate Felix Gall in the breakaway (Image credit: Tim de Waele/Getty Images)
Australian rider Ben O'Connor (AG2R Citroën) douses himself with water to cool down on the ascent of the Col de la Loze (Image credit: Marco BERTORELLO / AFP Getty Images)
Jumbo-Visma's Jonas Vingegaard, UAE Team Emirates' Matteo Trentin and UAE Team Emirates' Tadej Pogačar, wearing the best young rider's white jersey on the climb of Cormet de Roselend during stage 17 (Image credit: Getty Images)
Lidl - Trek's Giulio Ciccone leads the large front group wearing the best climber's polka dot jersey (Image credit: Marco BERTORELLO / AFP Getty Images)
Simon Yates of Team Jayco AlUla competes in the breakaway (Image credit: Tim de Waele/Getty Images)
Ineos Grenadiers riders massed together on stage 17, including Omar Fraile of Spain, Egan Bernal of Colombia (Image credit: Tim de Waele/Getty Images)
Felix Gall of AG2R Citroën Team competes in large front group as they head to the Côte de Longefoy (Image credit: Tim de Waele/Getty Images)
Race leader Jonas Vingegaard of Jumbo-Visma competes on climb of Cormet de Roseland (Image credit: David Ramos/Getty Images)
Egan Bernal of Ineos Grenadiers rejoins yellow jersey group after falling in corner of descent with 53km to go (Image credit: Tim de Waele/Getty Images)
A general view of the breakaway climbing to the Cormet de Roselend (Image credit: Tim de Waele/Getty Images)
The peloton passes through a village on its way to Courchevel, in the French Alps, (Image credit: Thomas SAMSON / AFP Getty Images)
Carlos Rodriguez of Ineos Grenadiers rides behind Mathieu van der Poel of Alpecin-Deceuninck on descent from the Cormet de Roselend (Image credit: David Ramos/Getty Images)
The peloton passes the Roselend Dam (Image credit: Tim de Waele/Getty Images)
Giulio Ciccone of Lidl-Trek, in the Polka Dot Mountain Jersey, competes during stage 17 to Courchevel (Image credit: Tim de Waele/Getty Images)
Yellow jerseygroup competes during stage 17, queen stage of 2023 Tour de France (Image credit: Tim de Waele/Getty Images)
Giulio Ciccone of Lidl-Trek, in the Polka Dot Mountain Jersey, acknowledges race leader Jonas Vingegaard of Jumbo-Visma, in Yellow Jersey, prior to the stage 17 start in Saint-Gervais Mont-Blanc (Image credit: David Ramos/Getty Images)
Best young rider and second-placed Tadej Pogačar of UAE Team Emirates signs autographs for fans at the start prior to stage 17 (Image credit: David Ramos/Getty Images)
Felix Gall celebrates on the podium after winning the 17th stage (Image credit: Marco BERTORELLO / AFP Getty Images)
Lidl - Trek's Giulio Ciccone celebrates on the podium with the best climber's polka dot jersey (Image credit: Anne-Christine POUJOULAT / AFP Getty Images)
UAE Team Emirates' Tadej Pogačar walks on the podium to continue as the best young rider classification leader (Image credit: Marco BERTORELLO / AFP Getty Images)
Simon Geschke (Cofidis) reaches the finish line ahead of the broom wagon on stage 17, with just over one minute to spare (Image credit: Anne-Christine POUJOULAT / AFP Getty Images)
Marc Soler leads Tadej Pogačar of UAE Team Emirates to the finish on airport runway at Courchevel (Image credit: Michael Steele/Getty Images)
A view of an injury to left leg of Tadej Pogačar of UAE Team Emirates during the stage 17 (Image credit: Tim de Waele/Getty Images)
Uno-X Pro Cycling Team's Tobias Halland Johannessen (R) and Groupama - FDJ's Thibault Pinot ride past cycling enthusiast "The Devil" in the breakaway (Image credit: Marco BERTORELLO / AFP Getty Images)
It was a hot day on stage 17, evident by Jonas Vingegaard of Jumbo-Visma cooling off with water during the stage (Image credit: Tim de Waele/Getty Images)

If there was any doubt about the destination of the Tour de France’s yellow jersey following the momentous events of the stage 16 time trial in Combloux, that was surely extinguished on stage 17 over the Col de la Loze.

Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) may not have won the queen stage of the Tour, but once again he put on a demonstration as to why he’s the race’s strongest man as his main rival Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) definitively cracked 15km from the finish, midway up the hors catégorie climb.

The Slovenian battled on with teammate Marc Soler for company, though having lost five minutes to Vingegaard on the road to the summit, the only real question surrounding the ‘big two’ now concerns how large the gap between them will be in Paris.

Up ahead, it was a day of glory for the breakaway and for Felix Gall (AG2R Citroën), who rounded off what has been a breakthrough summer campaign following his June stage win at the Tour de Suisse.

The Austrian climber proved the strongest from the day’s 34-man breakaway, leaving the likes of Simon Yates (Jayco-AlUla), Pello Bilbao (Bahrain Victorious), and David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) behind 13km from the line and 7km from the top.

He held off a dogged pursuit by Yates to solo across the summit of the Loze and race onto the final ramp at Courchevel’s airport runway to take the biggest win of his career. The Briton came home for second place, 34 seconds down. Bilbao rounded out the podium 1:39 down on Gall, with Vingegaard following shortly afterwards to surely seal his second Tour victory.

“It’s incredible. I don’t know what to say. This whole year has been incredible and now to do so well in the Tour de France and to win the queen stage, it’s incredible. I just want to say thank you to the team. They have given me so much," Gall said.

“It’s not easy to do a three-week stage race and I also had the role of leader after a few days, so we slowly focussed on that. I was stressing myself about that also. It’s not easy but in the last few days I’ve been more and more comfortable. 

“I was feeling really great. Actually, I was feeling great all day. I didn’t think the break would have a big chance to go for the victory. Before the last climb I was feeling super good and just looking by the numbers I knew that if we did this pace all day, I’d be in a good spot to give it a try. Ben did a great job on the last climb and I was just waiting for the steep part to attack.”

Behind them, the remainder of the GC contenders raced home in dribs and drabs, spread across the road by minutes at the end of another arduous day in the saddle.

At 3:43, Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates) took control of third overall, put 1:11 into his rival Carlos Rodríguez (Ineos Grenadiers). Waiting eyes, however, were trained on stopwatches and the toiling Pogačar. Having imploded 40 minutes earlier, he’d finally finish the stage 7:37 down – 5:45 behind Vingegaard – leaving him a massive 7:35 down in the general classification, though still in second place.

Adam Yates now lies third at 10:45, with Rodríguez now at 12:01 and looking over his shoulder at Simon Yates (12:19) and Bilbao (12:50) ahead of the final mountain stage to Le Markstein on Saturday.

How it unfolded

Stage 17 of the Tour de France would see the 155 remaining riders take on the queen stage of the race, passing four classified climbs, including two first-category mountains plus the HC-rated mammoth of the Col de la Loze (28.1km at 6%).

The attacks came from the start of the 165.7km stage, with a fast and frantic start as riders fought to make the break of the day. Early attacks came from polka-dot jersey holder Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) and his rival for the mountain classification Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost), among others, with 65 points up for grabs throughout the day.

It wouldn’t be so easy for those hoping to make the break, though, with Jonas Vingegaard’s Jumbo-Visma pushing the pace on the first climb of the day, the first-category Col de Saisies (13.4km at 5.1%).

Ciccone, Powless, and their handful of companions up the road would soon be joined by what remained of the peloton on the climb, including a Tadej Pogačar who had fallen after just 17km of racing.

The lead group – GC men and breakaway hopefuls – pushed on to the top together, with Ciccone nipping out to grab 10 points at the top. The Italian pushed on down the descent, joined by Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal-QuickStep) and Krists Neilands (Israel-Premier Tech) in what would end up being the day’s main breakaway.

Groups would come across on the way down and up the next climb, the Cormet de Roselend (19.9km at 6%), with 34 riders eventually making the break. Along with Ciccone and Alaphilippe, major names included two apiece from Jumbo-Visma and UAE Team Emirates – Tiesj Benoot, Wilco Kelderman, Vegard Stake Længen, and Marc Soler – as well as Thibaut Pinot, David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ), Jack Haig (Bahrain Victorious), Ben O’Connor, Felix Gall (AG2R Citroën), Alexey Lutsenko (Astana Qazaqstan), Simon Yates (Jayco-AlUla), and Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek).

The group pushed their advantage to a slim 1:30 on the way up, Jumbo-Visma limiting the gap, before Ciccone duly jumped out to add another 10 points to his total at the top of the Cormet de Roselend.

On the long descent to the base of the next climb, they’d double their advantage to three minutes, but that was about it, the gap only coming down from there onwards. Jumbo-Visma continued to set the pace in the peloton behind while once again it was Ciccone who led the way over the second-category Côte de Longefoy (6.6km at 7.5%). Another five points to take his total to 88, 30 up on Powless and one more on Vingegaard.

The Col de la Loze loomed next, with a short descent and some time in the valley lying between the top of the Longefoy and the start of the race to the Tour’s highest point.

Ineos Grenadiers led the peloton onto the climb at 2:50 down on the break, while once the gradients hit on the early slopes of the first section, riders immediately began to drop from both break and peloton.

The break would be more or less cut in half as even strong climbers like Ciccone, Skjelmose, Lutsenko, Soler, and Alaphilippe were spat out the back in the break. The peloton, meanwhile, quickly slimmed further to a select group of just under 20 GC men, domestiques, and climbers led by Ineos Grenadiers men Jonathan Castroviejo and Omar Fraile.

With Ineos in charge at a moderate rather than furious pace, there was little action to shout about on the early slopes of the climb. Indeed, the gap to the breakaway barely moved from the 2:30 from the start of the Loze 35km out until the GC group hit the mid-climb ‘pause’ of the short descent and flat section at Méribel.

Heading out of the town and into the final 15km of the stage and final 8km of the climb, Pogačar suddenly cracked at the rear of the group. With his team not setting the pace or seeking to pressure Vingegaard, it had already looked as though there was little chance of a challenge materialising, and as he dropped backwards and Jumbo-Visma took to the front, that was only confirmed.

Up front in the break, Jayco-AlUla had detonated the group with Chris Harper and Simon Yates, though it was Gall who made the first acceleration with 13km to go. Behind the Austrian it was Majka, Harper and Yates in the chase while Benoot drifted back to help Kuss make the pace for Vingegaard.

Soon enough, Benoot’s pace told as he, Vingegaard left the rest of the GC hopefuls behind, while Pogačar battled on into the final 5km of the climb a minute down in Soler’s wheel. Another UAE man, Adam Yates, clung onto the Jumbo mini-train longer than the rest, but soon enough Vingegaard was out on his own and attacking on the steepest slopes towards the summit.

The Dane linked up with Kelderman on the double-digit gradients in the final 3km of the climb, two minutes behind Gall, while Pogačar fought on another two-and-a-half minutes back.

Their progress was hindered towards the top as a stalled motorcycle held up an organiser’s car, forcing them to put feet down and push past. However, by then there was already little chance of making it across to Gall, still well up the road and pursued by Yates at 20 seconds.

Kelderman dropped away a kilometre from the summit, leaving Vingegaard to ride solo over the final 8km, crossing the summit 1:30 down on Gall having caught all but the Austrian and Simon Yates.

Gall still had the job to do of holding off Yates and staying upright on the technical descent down into Courchevel, avoiding the mattresses lining the outer edge of corners as safety measures. He duly did just that, and even expanded his advantage on the final uphill run to the line, a famous win secured.

Vingegaard came in among the breakaway chasers at 1:52 back, leaving a long wait for the remainder of the GC contenders on what had been a brutal day out in the mountains. He now leads the Tour by 7:37 from Pogačar, setting up the prospect of the biggest Tour winning margin since Jan Ullrich’s 9:09 over Richard Virenque in 1997.

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