The Tour de France entered the Alps on stage 17 and the victory went to a breakaway rider. Simon Geschke (Giant-Alpecin) attacked his breakaway companions before the penultimate climb of the day and then managed to hold on to the advantage through the climb, the treacherous subsequent descent and also on the final climb. This is the biggest win of his career as he has never won a Grand Tour stage before.
Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) tried to catch up with Geschke but hit the deck on the descent and eventually arrived fourth, behind second-placed Andrew Talansky (Cannondale-Garmin) and third-placed Rigoberto UrĂ¡n (Etixx - Quick-Step). The general classification did suffer some modifications as third-placed Tejay van Garderen was forced to quit the race early on due to illness. Later on Alberto Contado crashed on the final descent and eventually lost over two minutes, dropping to fifth position overall.
Chris Froome and Nairo Quintana proved that they are the two best riders at the Tour, they arrived together at the finish, a few seconds behind Alejandro Valverde and Vincenzo Nibali. The Italian looked in much better shape this time, he tried to attack on the penultimate climb but eventually lost the wheels of Froome and Quintana when the two attacked each other in the final kilometer of the stage. Alejandro Valverde moves up to third overall after Van Garderen dropped out of the race.
Thursday's stage 18 will be another extremely difficult one in the Alps. The course takes the riders from Gap to Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne through 186.5km and no less than seven registered climbs. The biggest one ends at around 40km from the finish, it's the Col du Glandon, a 21.7 kilometre-long climb at 5.1% average gradient. Here are the outright Tour de France odds at Bet365 with four stages to go:
Chris Froome - 1.083 Nairo Quintana - 7.00 Alejandro Valverde - 67.00 Alberto Contador - 81.00 Vincenzo Nibali - 151.00
Alexa Alexa 8 years ago
With every stage ,Chris Froome is getting closer to the trophy.This was very good race for Simon Geschke.Tour de France is getting near to the finish,so it looks like it almost over and Froome will be the champion.Only Quintana still has some chances,but those chances are really small.
Please enter your comment.
Your comment is added.
sharpe 8 years ago
With Nibali, Quintana and Valverde all attacking, even Contador earlier in the stage but Froome once again proved that he's the best rider in this years tour. Still 3 very tough stages in the Alps to come and you never know how your body is going to react at the next day in so many tough stages in a row but if everything...
With Nibali, Quintana and Valverde all attacking, even Contador earlier in the stage but Froome once again proved that he's the best rider in this years tour. Still 3 very tough stages in the Alps to come and you never know how your body is going to react at the next day in so many tough stages in a row but if everything is normal with Chris he didn't have to be worry for the end victory. This stage will be also remembered with a Tejay's leavings after some healthy issues which was really tough for him.
Show morePlease enter your comment.
Your comment is added.