A historic triumph. A rider from Ecuador won a stage at the Tour de France for the first time: I will remember it all my life – Cycling

Ecuadorian cyclist Richard Carapaz from the EF Education – Easy Post team became the winner of Wednesday’s 17th stage of the 111th Tour de France. On the 177.8 km long route from Saint-Paul-Trois-Chateaux to the Superdevoluy ski resort, he triumphed by 37 seconds ahead of the British Simon Yates (Jayco AlUla), Enric Mas from Spain (Movistar) completed the podium. Slovenian Tadej Pogačar (SAE Team Emirates) remained in the yellow jersey.

The 2021 Olympic champion Carapaz triumphed at the Tour de France for the first time in his career and took Ecuador’s first ever victory.

“It’s an amazing feeling, the stage victory was our goal today. Today was difficult, we were attacking all the time. I used the right moment on the climb.

I will remember this victory for the rest of my life, it is a huge achievement. Only the best win at the Tour, because it’s the best race in the world,” said the 31-year-old competitor at the finish line.

At the beginning of the stage, an escape was expected. Several groups of riders tried it several times, but the foursome of Tiesj Benoot (Visma), Bob Jungels (Bora-Hansgrohe), Romain Grégoire (Groupama-FDJ) and Magnus Cort (Uno-X) was more successful approximately 120 kilometers before the finish line.

She kept her lead until the sprint premium in Veynes, 20 points were taken by the Dane Cort. More interesting, however, was the fight in the peloton between the man in green, the Eritrean Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty) and Jasper Philipsen from the Alpecin – Deceuninck team.

After a sprint on the right side of the road, Girmay finally gained one more point and increased his lead over Philipsen to 33 points at the head of the points competition.

The leading quartet held the lead for less than a minute, the peloton split, about forty riders broke away from the chase group.

At the first of the three mountain premiums on Col Bayard, Cort again enjoyed the biggest share of points, the peloton already lost seven minutes. Next up was the most difficult climb of Wednesday’s stage to the top of the Col du Noyer.

The Frenchmen Valentin Madouas (Groupama-FDJ), Guillame Martin (Cofidis) attacked from the chasing group and caught up with the opening four, but they did not stay at the top for long. In the steep climb, Yates took the stage and soon led. The original leak has already been absorbed by the chase group.

Three kilometers before the top of the Col du Noyer, Carapaz caught up with Yates at a decisive moment and finally crossed the category 1 premium first and gained eight bonus seconds.

In the meantime, Pogačar attacked from the peloton in the fight for the overall standings, leaving behind both competitors Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step) and Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease and Bike).

However, with the help of his teammate Jan Hirt, Evenepoel overtook Pogačar and took ten seconds off him in the overall standings. However, he still loses 5:09 minutes from the third place, the second Vingegaard has a deficit of 3:11 minutes.