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A 12 months after thrilling his dwelling nation for a fortnight on final 12 months’s Tour de France, a tearful Julian Alaphilippe produced an virtually carbon-copy seize of a stage win Sunday to assert the general chief’s yellow jersey as soon as once more. On the day’s ultimate climb, Alaphilippe launched a blistering assault to clinch bonus seconds on the summit earlier than a white-knuckle descent to the end line in Nice additionally gave him bonus time. Alaphilippe, described by former winner Geraint Thomas throughout final 12 months’s rampage because the “darling of France”, leads Britain’s Adam Yates, who accompanied him in his wild sprint from distance, by simply 4 seconds.
The most important total contenders are 17 seconds adrift.
“I just wanted to dedicate this victory to my dad. It was important to me,” mentioned a tearful Alaphilippe whose father Jo handed away in June.
Former soldier Alaphilippe started punching in direction of the sky as he turned to see simply how shut behind him the onrushing peloton was to overtaking his escaping trio on the Promenade des Anglais end line.
The set-up of the second stage was eerily near how Alaphilippe stole away from the peloton final 12 months on day three to Epernay and ultimately led the Tour for 14 days earlier than wilting on the penultimate stage to complete fifth total.
‘It damage’
No Frenchman has gained the Tour de France since 1985.
“I really wanted to try something and I had nothing to lose,” mentioned Deceuninck-Quick Step’s chief.
“It really hurt me, I was digging deep at the end there,” mentioned Alaphilippe.
“It’s a great pride and responsibility and I will defend this honour day by day, I won’t be giving it up tomorrow that’s for sure,” he promised.
Jumbo-Visma might, nonetheless, be livid on the circumstances accompanying the win.
Shortly after Alaphilippe’s assault, Team Ineos’ Michal Kwiatkowski in some way backed into Jumbo co-captain Tom Dumoulin and knocked him to the ground.
The former Giro winner dusted himself off as Kwiatkowski apologised profusely, however the group was sluggish to react.
The Dutch outfit had been main the pinnacle of the peloton all day, however out of the blue they slowed down and deserted their pursuit of Alaphilippe, who had the Swiss Marc Hirschi and Yates for firm on their tense 15-minute sprint to the road the place they by no means led by greater than 30 seconds.
Mitchelton-Scott rider Yates has just lately signed for British group Ineos.
He has a monitor report on the Tour after a fourth-place end in 2016 when he gained the most effective younger rider white jersey.
“In the end I was never going to win the sprint, but to come third on stage two, I’m pretty happy with that,” mentioned Yates.
Defending champion Egan Bernal of Colombia mentioned he felt just like the Tour was in full swing.
“I’m happy to be racing like this, that was a real Tour stage and I really enjoyed it,” mentioned the 23-year-old Ineos chief who had a barely rusty build-up to the race.
The man who began the day in yellow, Norway’s Alexander Kristoff, who gained Saturday’s crash-marred opening stage, completed method off the tempo as one of many heaviest set males within the peloton needed to go over two class one mountains.
He will, nonetheless, embark on Monday’s stage three within the inexperienced dash jersey.
“I didn’t want to hurt my chances of winning a sprint later in the tour by pushing too hard in the hills,” he defined.
The climb was doubly tough for a number of of the peloton, nursing nasty knocks from stage one.
It seemed like French contender Thibaut Pinot would withdraw at one stage earlier than he rallied “hurting all over” to complete with the primary pack.
Promoted
Monday’s stage three heads to Sisteron, a city of 8,000 that British sprinter Mark Cavendish could have fond reminiscences of after a stage win in 2010.
The 198km run into the Haute-Provence area by way of the Riviera backcountry and the splendidly named ‘Valley de la Durance’ is tailored for a profitable escape.
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