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Primoz Roglic maintained the general lead within the Tour de France on Tuesday with eyes now nervously turning to the excessive altitude showdown awaiting the elite on Wednesday’s excessive altitude Meribel climb. Bora-hansgrohe’s German all-rounder Lennard Kamna gained stage 16 after the Tour’s first giant escape group was allowed to get away over some medium mountains. Kamna got here good on the 164-kilometre run by the Alps by defeating Ineos rider Richard Carapaz over the ultimate stretch after the pair had been a part of the escape group.
The victory was simply reward for the 24-year-old who was pipped to the road on the Puy Mary volcano final week. It was his first Tour de France stage win, and Bora’s first this yr.
“I saw Carapaz wasn’t feeling too good and I went all in and it worked out,” mentioned Kamna, additionally a gifted time-triallist who might have an enormous future.
“I was so disappointed on the Puy Mary, but this puts that behind me.”
Almost 17 minutes again, in a area dotted with ski resorts, the yellow jersey group ascended along with solely Tadej Pogacar making an attempt to upset Roglic and his Jumbo-Visma teammates.
Colombia’s Miguel Angel Lopez powered previous them everywhere in the last 200m however was adopted carefully over the road with no change on the high aside from Nairo Quintana dropping a bit of time.
Roglic leads Pogacar by 40 seconds with 5 phases remaining. Rigoberto Uran is third at 1min 34sec, whereas Lopez and Briton Adam Yates spherical out the highest 5.
Ineos despatched two riders within the breakaway, Carapaz and Pavel Sivakov, the pair who had been supposed to assist their chief on the summits, however each of whom fell on day one.
The British crew’s captain Egan Bernal suffered a stunning meltdown on Sunday and fell out of rivalry.
Showing depth of character the 23-year-old Colombian made himself freely accessible to the media proper after his defeat, and right here the defeated champion rode with a smile on his face once more.
Slovenian pair Roglic and his rival Pogacar at the moment are the main focus of consideration on an atypical Tour the place Jumbo have knocked Ineos off their perch because the dominant crew.
“Everything was under control,” mentioned the 30-year-old Roglic, who as soon as once more had a posse with him all the way in which to the end line.
“But tomorrow will be nicer to watch. It’s the queen stage, the highest point, crazy hard the final five kilometres. It’ll be a fight for every second,” mentioned the previous ski jumper who has emerged as probably the most highly effective athlete in Tour biking over the previous three years.
Wednesday’s stage 17 leaves the Alpine metropolis of Grenoble, passes the Tour stalwart Col de la Madeleine’s 17km winding street and culminates on the Meribel mountain.
The new part solely just lately opened makes its debut on the Tour de France with components at 20 % incline and can go away some gasping within the rarefied air manner above the treeline at 2,304m altitude.
The designer of this Tour route, Thierry Gouvenou mentioned the issue lay within the last excessive altitude part.
“There are over seven kilometres over the 2,000m mark and it’ll be for the lighter men with plenty of kick,” he mentioned.
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The sort of large crowds which collect for raucous two-day events at these excessive mountain showdowns could also be calmer than traditional, as no autos are allowed within the increased reaches in any respect.
Earlier Tuesday, Tour de France organisers have been in exultant temper when asserting that each one of their cyclists have been destructive for Covid-19 within the last spherical of assessments.
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