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Tour de France 2022 : Stage 19 – Christophe Laporte makes French Hearts Sing

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Stage 19 saw Christophe Laporte claim his first plushie on a Tour de France podium to give Jumbo-Visma their fifth victory and the French their first. Can you hear La Marseillaise? The flying French Jumbo Bee jumped to the three man leading group in the last kilometre, then surged in the finale to come over the line with sheer disbelief and joy written large on his face. In a missed opportunity for the fast men, Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) pipped Team DSM’s Alberto Dainese for second place in the bunch sprint.  Despite some nervous moments for due echelon action, ill timed mechanicals and yet another protest, the GC remains unchanged. Not that it stopped Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team-Emirates) from trying his luck to grab a few seconds back on the yellow jersey Jonas Vingegaard along the way.

The route to Cahors was one of those stages where it’s rolling enough to make the legs hurt,  yet flat enough to tempt the sprinter teams. Yet again the action was fast and furious from the start as the sprint teams were in no mood to let this chance slip away. The early breakaway was kept on a short leash and eventually brought to heel.

This happened…

This happened – because Pog can’t help himself

With 31km to go Jasper Stuyven (Trek-Segafredo) went clear with Alexis Gougeard (B&B Hotels-KTM), Fred Wright (Bahrain-Victorious)

Lotto Soudal, Total Direct Energies Bike Exchange-Jayco, Alpecin-Deceuninck kept the pressure on but the gap wasn’t coming down fast enough.

It wasn’t until Super Wout came to front and did his thing to keep the yellow jersey safe and bring Laporte into play that the distance shrunk.

Laporte jumped to the lead three. Under the Flamme Rouge and Fred Wright put in a monster pull to break free (I LOVE FRED WRIGHT!).

Stuyven countered, effectively playing lead out for the Frenchman who leapt past all of them for his win.

Here’s your highlights…

Your Jumbo-Visma Winner of the Day – Christophe Laporte!

There is something special about this Jumbo-Visma team. They are a band-of-brothers, riding for each other, backing each other up when things don’t go quite to plan and sharing the spoils.

They were thrilled with Christophe’s win

When Wout tells you it’s your day, and then rides his green socks off to make it so

Nicolas Portal

The race passed through Auch today, home of Nico Portal, the French lead DS behind so many of Team Sky’s victories. He is still missed.

The last word

TT day tomorrow – this one is for you ed.

Results

Stage 18 results

1 Christophe Laporte (Jumbo-Visma) 3:52:04

2 Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) +0:01

3 Alberto Dainese (Team DSM) same time

4 Florian Senechal (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl) s.t

5 Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) s.t

GC Top 10

Embed from Getty Images

1 Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) 75:35:49

2 Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) +3:26

3 Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) +8:00

4 David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) +11:05

5 Nairo Quintana (Team Arkea-Samsic) +13:35

6 Louis Meintjes (Intermarche-Wanty-Gobert) +13:43

7 Aleksandr Vlasov (Bora-hansgrohe) +14:10

8 Romain Bardet (Team DSM) +16:11

9 Alexey Lutsenko (Astana Qazaqstan Team) +20:29

10 Adam Yates (Ineos Grenadiers) +20:37

All the jerseys

Leader’s jersey : Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma)

Points jersey : Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma)

King of the Mountains jersey : Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma)

Young Rider Jersey : Tadej Pogacar (UAE)

Team competition : INEOS Grenadiers

For the full stage review, go to cyclingnews

Go here for the official Tour de France website

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