Evenepoel attacks on thrilling Tour de France stage

Evenepoel attacks on thrilling Tour de France stage

Remco Evenepoel showed guts and determination as the peloton headed towards the Alps on stage 17 of the Grande Boucle for a day that had breakaway written all over it. One of the strongest riders of this Tour, the white jersey wearer was in the thick of the action in the last ten kilometers, when the action exploded in the favourites’ group, and thanks to a valiant effort he ended up taking time on all the other GC men and fortifying his third place overall.

The day was an intense one, attacks coming just moments after the peloton rolled through the neutral zone. The high pace and the sidewind split the bunch, but only for a couple of minutes, everything coming back together the moment the wind dropped. This didn’t stop the riders from travelling at more than 51km/h, as a breakaway was trying to take shape, but it took a lot of effort and countless attacks for a large group – that contained Soudal Quick-Step’s Jan Hirt – to go clear deep into the stage.

Behind, the peloton slowed down and allowed the escapees to open a massive nine-minute gap, but the speed went up again on the hard Col du Norey, a short but steep climb making its fifth appearance at the Tour de France. One kilometer from the top, the yellow jersey attacked, but Remco Evenepoel reacted and after an impressive effort on the stiff gradients and the subsequent descent, he linked up with him before others joined them.

This small group, featuring the first three men on the general classification, started the ascent of Superdévoluy around eight minutes behind Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost), who took the victory from the breakaway. Sensing an opportunity, Remco accelerated with two kilometers to go and put some daylight between him and the others as he joined Hirt, who was waiting for him up the road. The experienced Czech – eighth at this year’s Giro d’Italia – emptied himself in the service of the Belgian, who then took off just ahead of the red kite.

Remco pushed the pedal to the metal and continued to extend his lead, finishing ten respectively twelve seconds ahead of Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) and Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike), a result that puts him within two minutes on the second-placed rider on the standings while at the same time ensuring him a comfortable buffer over those trailing him.

“I knew the climbs of this stage, so I was pretty confident. When Tadej attacked my legs felt good and I reacted, did my best and joined him on the descent. Knowing that Jan was up the road, I attacked in the finale and bridged across, and he just left everything out there. I felt good and kept going, and even though I didn’t gain a lot of time, my main goal was to take time on the guys behind me in the GC, so I’m happy I did that. The team was tactically strong today, we are all motivated and we’ll try our best to keep this place on the podium”, Remco explained after the stage.

 

Photo credit: ©Tim De Waele / Getty Images

Race details

1 Richard Carapaz Montenegro
EF Education - EasyPost
4:06:13
2 Simon Yates
Team Jayco AlUla
0:37
3 Enric Mas Nicolau
Movistar Team
0:57
4 Laurens De Plus
INEOS Grenadiers
1:44
5 Oscar Onley
Team dsm-firmenich PostNL
1:44
6 Guillaume Martin Guyonnet
Cofidis
2:36
7 Magnus Cort Nielsen
Uno-X Mobility
2:38
8 Wout Poels
Bahrain - Victorious
2:39
9 Jordan Jegat
TotalEnergies
2:39
10 Alex Aranburu Deba
Movistar Team
2:39
26 Remco Evenepoel
Soudal Quick-Step
7:13
31 Jan Hirt
Soudal Quick-Step
8:07
45 Mikel Landa Meana
Soudal Quick-Step
9:26
46 Ilan Van Wilder
Soudal Quick-Step
9:26
121 Gianni Moscon
Soudal Quick-Step
25:32
123 Yves Lampaert
Soudal Quick-Step
27:14
1 Tadej Pogačar
UAE Team Emirates
70:21:27
2 Jonas Vingegaard Hansen
Team Visma | Lease a Bike
3:11
3 Remco Evenepoel
Soudal Quick-Step
5:09
4 João Almeida
UAE Team Emirates
12:57
5 Mikel Landa Meana
Soudal Quick-Step
13:24
6 Carlos Rodríguez Cano
INEOS Grenadiers
13:30
7 Adam Yates
UAE Team Emirates
15:41
8 Giulio Ciccone
Lidl - Trek
17:51
9 Derek Gee
Israel - Premier Tech
18:15
10 Santiago Buitrago Sánchez
Bahrain - Victorious
18:35
27 Ilan Van Wilder
Soudal Quick-Step
1:16:44
77 Gianni Moscon
Soudal Quick-Step
3:04:03
79 Jan Hirt
Soudal Quick-Step
3:04:32
126 Yves Lampaert
Soudal Quick-Step
4:00:10
1 Biniam Girmay Hailu
Intermarché - Wanty
387 pt
2 Jasper Philipsen
Alpecin - Deceuninck
354 pt
3 Bryan Coquard
Cofidis
188 pt
4 Anthony Turgis
TotalEnergies
163 pt
5 Arnaud De Lie
Lotto Dstny
161 pt
6 Tadej Pogačar
UAE Team Emirates
136 pt
7 Jonas Abrahamsen
Uno-X Mobility
136 pt
8 Wout van Aert
Team Visma | Lease a Bike
130 pt
9 Pascal Ackermann
Israel - Premier Tech
118 pt
10 Remco Evenepoel
Soudal Quick-Step
112 pt
32 Mikel Landa Meana
Soudal Quick-Step
38 pt
94 Ilan Van Wilder
Soudal Quick-Step
7 pt
1 Tadej Pogačar
UAE Team Emirates
77 pt
2 Jonas Vingegaard Hansen
Team Visma | Lease a Bike
58 pt
3 Remco Evenepoel
Soudal Quick-Step
42 pt
4 Jonas Abrahamsen
Uno-X Mobility
36 pt
5 Oier Lazkano López
Movistar Team
35 pt
6 Richard Carapaz Montenegro
EF Education - EasyPost
34 pt
7 David Gaudu
Groupama - FDJ
30 pt
8 Carlos Rodríguez Cano
INEOS Grenadiers
24 pt
9 Ben Healy
EF Education - EasyPost
21 pt
10 Javier Romo
Movistar Team
18 pt
16 Mikel Landa Meana
Soudal Quick-Step
14 pt
1 Remco Evenepoel
Soudal Quick-Step
70:26:36
2 Carlos Rodríguez Cano
INEOS Grenadiers
8:21
3 Santiago Buitrago Sánchez
Bahrain - Victorious
13:26
4 Matteo Jorgenson
Team Visma | Lease a Bike
17:09
5 Ben Healy
EF Education - EasyPost
34:24
6 Javier Romo
Movistar Team
51:14
7 Ilan Van Wilder
Soudal Quick-Step
1:11:35
8 Jordan Jegat
TotalEnergies
1:38:30
9 Tobias Halland Johannessen
Uno-X Mobility
1:39:05
10 Oscar Onley
Team dsm-firmenich PostNL
1:45:04
1 UAE Team Emirates 211:29:24
2 Team Visma | Lease a Bike 54:18
3 Soudal Quick-Step 59:21
4 INEOS Grenadiers 1:16:27
5 Lidl - Trek 1:55:24
6 Movistar Team 2:18:34
7 Bahrain - Victorious 2:24:50
8 Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe 2:31:03
9 EF Education - EasyPost 2:33:42
10 Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team 3:09:28

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