There was more than one moment during stage 17 of the Tour de France to SuperDévoluy that the EF Education-EasyPost directeur sportif thought Richard Carapaz's chances of victory had gone but out front the Ecuadorian continued to calmly play his hand.
The battle for a place in the break on the 177.8km stage was unrelenting. Four riders got away and stretched a gap after more than 50km filled with attempts but those who had missed out still weren't prepared to give up on this rare opportunity for the break.
There was a constant to and fro over the subsequent 60km as a stream of attackers turned themselves inside out to try and form a group to bridge. Ultimately more than 40 riders split off the front of the peloton in pursuit of the break.
Many teams had two, three or even four riders among the large chase group but for EF Education-EasyPost it was just one, the right one.
"Those guys really blew themselves to pieces to get in there," said Jonathan Vaughters, team manager at EF ProCycling.
"Once Richard was there, he was by himself because his teammates had basically killed themselves to get him there. We had one card to play and we played an ace."
As the number of riders in the large chase group dwindled on the climbs, the attacks flew off the front. A notable one came from Simon Yates (Jayco-AlUla) who quickly bridged to the riders out the front and then rode away from them.
However Carapaz was in pursuit.
"I knew that I was going to be very marked but I got into the group on the descent of the first climb and was the first to get across to Yates who was the one who went for it at the beginning," said Carapaz.
He then went on to drop the Jayco-AlUla rider behind on the upper slopes of the Col du Noyer, with 13.3km of the stage to go.
"I let him have a couple of meters, and waited and waited and knew that those last two kilometres were super hard and that I could make myself a very big gap there that was big enough to get to the line," Carapaz explained.
Once the gap was open, Carapaz kept it through the descent from Col du Noyer and on the climb to SuperDévoluy, crossing the finish line 37 seconds ahead of Yates and 57 seconds ahead of Enric Mas (Movistar).
Carapaz began the Tour with doubts about his form after a crash at the Tour de Suisse. He had to spend time off the bike and had required five stitches for one of the cuts inside his mouth. But he and the team fought for daily success. Carapaz has now spent a day in yellow and taken victory on stage 17 at this year's edition of the Tour de France.
The 2019 Giro d'Italia winner and Olympic champion now stage victories in all three Grand Tours.
"Obviously, it was a gamble bringing him here, but ultimately you can see the level of natural talent that guy has. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life," said Vaughters, adding that the team's 2023 signing had left him "flabbergasted".
"From the run in he had before the Tour de France, which was the worst run in possible, to winning a hard, hard stage in the third week of the race is just incredible."
"Tactically, there were multiple times where it was like, oh no, he’s messed it up or he’s hesitated too long or whatever. He was calmer than we were behind and was measuring things just perfectly and bringing things back just when he needed to. He was actually playing the game perfectly which was impressive to watch."
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