Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Sport
Jeremy Whittle in Cahors

Christophe Laporte wins stage 19 to end home drought in Tour de France

Jumbo-Visma’s Christophe Laporte celebrates as he crosses the finish line to win the 19th stage
Jumbo-Visma’s Christophe Laporte celebrates as he crosses the finish line to win the 19th stage. Photograph: Michael Steele/Getty Images

When Tadej Pogacar dramatically toppled a shell-shocked Primoz Roglic in the final time trial of the 2020 Tour de France to snatch the yellow jersey from the Jumbo-Visma team, Jonas Vingegaard was in hospital, celebrating the arrival of his first child.

“I had just had my daughter, so I was watching from the hospital,” this year’s race leader said, on the eve of the 2022 Tour’s final “race of truth”, after being asked if memories of Roglic’s humiliation at the hands of Pogacar still haunted the team.

“I wouldn’t say we talk a lot about it. For me, tomorrow [Saturday] is about doing everything I can to keep this beautiful [yellow] jersey. I’ll give everything I have.”

With a lead of three minutes and 26 secs over Pogacar (UAE Emirates) going into this Tour’s penultimate stage, Vingegaard can be confident but not complacent.

Right now, the omens are good and his team is flying. In Cahors, his French teammate Christophe Laporte won stage 19 after holding off the pursuing peloton in the shade of the plane trees lining the Boulevard Leon Gambetta.

“It’s been an incredible Tour for us so far,” Vingegaard said. “Five stage wins, we have the green jersey, the yellow, the polka dot , we just have to do our best tomorrow and hopefully I can bring the yellow jersey to Paris. We’re not there yet.”

Laporte bridged across to the stage’s last breakaway group, including Britain’s Fred Wright, in the final kilometre. A strong time triallist and sprinter, the Frenchman accelerated clear of the leading trio with only 400 metres left to race, and hard though Wright tried, he was unable to prevent the 29-year-old from taking the first Tour stage win of his career. For Wright, it was his third near miss, after coming close to a stage win both in Lausanne and Saint-Étienne.

This has been a torrid and tortuous Tour for sprinters, with only three field sprints in 19 days of racing. Mark Cavendish, not picked by his Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl team, might now be thinking he has had a lucky escape.

Jonas Vingegaard of Denmark crosses the finishing line during the 109th stage of the Tour de France.
Jonas Vingegaard has a three minute and 26 second lead over Tadej Pogacar. Photograph: Michael Steele/Getty Images

Caleb Ewan, last man standing on the race’s general classification, and Fabio Jakobsen, winner of stage two to Nyborg, have both suffered hugely in this Tour’s mountain stages.

Ewan, riding for Lotto Soudal and once tipped to be Cavendish’s successor, is now five and a half hours behind race leader Vingegaard and clinging onto the hope that maybe he can reprise his 2019 win in Paris on the Champs-Élysées on Sunday. Earlier, the stage was again briefly held up by the climate change activists, Dernière Rénovation, who brought the peloton to a halt 160km from the finish. It was the group’s third protest of the race.

“We are sorry for the inconvenience caused to this sporting event. We are trying to force the government to stick to its own engagements,” a statement said.

Meanwhile, the Astana-Qazaqstan team’s wholly forgettable Tour was made even worse when news broke that the team’s star rider, Miguel Ángel López, a former Tour stage winner, had been stopped by police after being linked to a drug trafficking case in Spain.

“The news that was spread in the media yesterday evening caught us by surprise, and at the moment we do not have any details,” the team said. Lopez has also won stages on the Vuelta a España, and is a past winner of the Tour de Suisse and the Volta a Catalunya.

  • Download the Guardian app from the iOS App Store on iPhones or the Google Play store on Android phones by searching for 'The Guardian'.
  • If you already have the Guardian app, make sure you’re on the most recent version.
  • In the Guardian app, tap the yellow button at the bottom right, then go to Settings (the gear icon), then Notifications.
  • Turn on sport notifications.

Lopez was understood to have been intercepted at the Madrid-Barajas Airport by police in connection to the investigation. However his agents, Javier de las Heras and Alfredo Gómez, then denied that Lopez is under investigation, and denied all reports of an arrest, claiming that he underwent only a routine search.

“Lopez denies having a relationship/participation in any criminal act related to the distribution of unauthorised medicines or any other product referred to in the news,” their statement added.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.