Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) completed the Grand Tour stage win set after producing a stunning effort from the breakaway to win stage 17 of the Tour de France solo in SuperDévoluy, adding to his three wins from the Giro and three from the Vuelta.
After missing the early breakaway, Carapaz worked tirelessly to get into a chasing 48-rider group in the final 60km of the breathless 177.8km stage alongside the likes of Simon Yates (Jayco AlUla), who was the last rider he dropped on the upper slopes of the Col du Noyer 13.3km from the finish.
Yates rolled across the line 37 seconds behind the winner to take second after a valiant effort to match Carapaz, with Enric Mas (Movistar) rolling over the line in third close to a minute in arrears.
EF Education-EasyPost were finally rewarded for their full gas efforts which have been on display throughout the 2024 Tour, adding a stage win with Carapaz to a magical first stint in the maillot jaune for the Olympic Champion on stage 4.
Despite the peloton letting the breakaway build a near-10-minute gap and fight for the stage win, race leader Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) didn’t give his rivals any recovery time as he attacked towards the top of the Col du Noyer, putting both Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) in trouble.
Evenepoel responded better as he powered past a struggling Vingegaard and began chasing down the yellow jersey on the descent, with satellite riders becoming very important in the final few kilometres. Christophe Laporte first guided Vingegaard down the descent after making it into an early break, which brought the three leaders back together before Evenepoel attacked on the final 3.8km climb.
The Belgian used Jan Hirt to pace for him while Vingegaard has Tiesj Benoot and Wout van Aert to try and protect his second place. Pogačar sat in behind the Visma train before exploding away to snatch two more seconds on his rival as Evenepoel took 12 seconds on Vingegaard in the battle for second.
Pogačar now sits 3:11 ahead of Vingegaard, with Evenepoel 5:09 off the lead and 1:58 from the Dane in second.
The GC favourites battle should resume on Friday’s stage to Isola 2000 with tomorrow’s stage 18 offering the likes of Carapaz, whose win was Ecuador’s first at the Tour, a chance to double up on Tour stage wins on a brutal, undulating 179.5-kilometre stage from Gap to Barcelonnette.
“This means everything to me. We have been trying it since the beginning. This was our first goal; to get a stage win. Today was so difficult with attack after attack until eventually there was a big group. It's going to be a day I will remember for my life,” said Carapaz in his winner’s interview.
“I knew I would have some freedom in that group. I had to wait for the right moment and made the most of it. We studied the course this morning with our sports director and I knew what I had to do. It's a great victory.
“Everyone is the best at the Tour, it's the biggest race in the world. Every team brings the best riders and expectations are so high. It's the best race for the best riders. The fans are going crazy, everyone is going crazy. I'm proud to be here.”
How it unfolded
With almost a guarantee of breakaway action on stage 17 and every team looking to get something out of the race, the start from Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux saw attacks get going right from the opening few kilometres.
Crosswinds hit the race as the 148 remaining riders headed east towards the Alps, causing echelons to form at the likes of Stef Cras (TotalEnergies) and Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates) to be caught out. However, things quickly came back together in the less-exposed areas and this was just the calm before the storm.
What followed was hours of all-out racing to try and get into the day’s breakaway, with a pattern of small groups forming and getting caught as they navigated the draggy, undulating roads in the Drôme department.
Visma-Lease a Bike were incredibly interested with Wout van Aert, Tiesj Benoot and Matteo Jorgenson all trying at times to make it into a move, with DSM-Firmenich PostNL and EF Education-EasyPost also eager not to miss out.
Finally, some 57km into the day and after a breathless opening phase raced at 47kph, a quartet managed to get more than a 10-second advantage for the first time in the stage - Benoot, Magnus Cort (Uno-X Mobility), Romain Grégoire (Groupama-FDJ) and Bob Jungels (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe).
Their lead would grow over 45 seconds but still, as the attacks flew in the splintering peloton, they weren’t allowed to properly get away. Carapaz and Yates were among those who tried to bridge, alongside a big group containing Michał Kwiatkowski (Ineos Grenadiers), but none could get away from the aggressive chasing group.
As the race completed the toughest part of a long uncategorised climb and entered the final 100km of racing, things calmed down momentarily and those out the back finally had an opportunity to get back to the front and support their leaders, notably UAE, who had at times left Pogačar relatively isolated.
All eyes turned to the intermediate sprint point in Veynes, with the two leads in the points classification Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty) and Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) both present. Thankfully, Girmay showed no signs of suffering from his crash yesterday and beat Philipsen to the remaining points behind the four leaders, keeping his green jersey safe.
The sprint opened the attacking back up behind with a much bigger peloton now in pursuit en route to Gap, a typical entry point to the Alps in the Tour. Splits formed and so many teams showed their interest.
Eventually, a 48-rider group managed to form a huge new bunch away from the GC favourites, with at least a man from 21 of the 22 teams at the Tour present in one of the lead groups. Big names who made it included Van Aert, Simon Yates, Carapaz, Laurens De Plus, Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers), Matej Mohoric, Jack Haig (Bahrain-Victorious), Jan Hirt (Soudal-QuickStep), David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ), Stevie Williams (Israel-Premier Tech), Enric Mas (Movistar), Kévin Vauquelin (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) and Romain Bardet (DSM-Firmenich PostNL).
The four men from the breakaway hit the foot of the first categorised climb, which arrived after over 1300m of elevation gain and 130km of full gas racing, Col Bayard with 1:45 on the huge chase group and 4:24 on the peloton that showed they were not going to go for the stage.
Multiple riders from the 48-man group began suffering on the 6.8km climb as only the best climbers survived. Guillaume Martin (Cofidis) and Valentin Madouas (Groupama-FDJ) then launched a move to try and bridge to the four leaders.
They would succeed, completing the junction at the foot of the hardest climb of the day, Col du Noyer, where only a few hundred metres had to be completed before Yates hit out for glory 18.4km from the line.
The former Vuelta winner melted away the six-man break’s now 30-second advantage, however, the response behind was coming from another Grand Tour winner - Carapaz.
Williams tried to go with Carapaz as he exploded away from the faltering chasers and started getting close to Yates, who had dropped the day’s early break easily on the toughest inclines.
It quickly became two in the front as Carapaz both dropped Williams and caught Yates just before they reached the hardest part of the climb - the final 2km. The Olympic Champion then put the hurt on the Brit 13.3km from the finish and 1.8km from the crest of the 7.5km climb.
He would slowly eke out his lead to 10, 20, then 35 seconds as he navigated the short descent and final climb to SuperDévoluy quicker than those chasing him. Yates faded but held off a recovering Mas as they rounded out the day’s podium.
GC action then started kicking off over eight minutes down the road with Pogačar launching out of the wheel of his rivals and immediately making a selection on the penultimate climb. Vingegaard tried but lacked the explosivity to bridge the gap, while Evenepoel got close but still wasn’t on before the descent.
Racing came back together for the four favourites as they picked up stragglers from the break and Christophe Laporte brought his Visma leader Vingegaard back to his two rivals. Evenepoel then saw his opportunity and attacked away on the 3.8km climb for home.
Jan Hirt (Soudal-QuickStep) was up the road from the early breakaway and did a final lead-out for Evenepoel to try and keep his advantage above 10 seconds to the now Visma-led chasing group, with more escapees helping their Danish leader, Benoot and Van Aert.
Their efforts kept the gap to just 12 seconds but Pogačar, as expected, launched a final violent sprint in the last 300 metres to gain two seconds and a psychological blow to Vingegaard ahead of the final four stages.
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