By W. G. S. D. Wijesinghe, Jadetimes news
Richard Carapaz has achieved a remarkable milestone in his cycling career by winning stage 17 of the Tour de France, completing his set of victories in cycling's Grand Tours. Having already secured stage wins at the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a Espana, as well as an Olympic road race gold medal, Carapaz claimed his first Tour de France stage triumph with an impressive solo performance in the Alps.
The Education EasyPost rider also made history as the first Ecuadorian to win a stage at the Tour. Carapaz outpaced Britain's Simon Yates, who finished second, while Tadej Pogačar finished 27th but extended his overall lead in the general classification over Jonas Vingegaard by two seconds, now holding a margin of three minutes and 11 seconds.
Pogacar, aiming for his third consecutive overall victory, launched a surprising late attack but was caught by Vingegaard, last year's winner. However, Pogacar managed to beat his rival in a sprint to slightly increase his lead in the general classification.
Remco Evenepoel, who is third overall, finished the stage in 26th place, 10 seconds ahead of Pogacar and 12 seconds ahead of Vingegaard. This result puts Evenepoel just under two minutes behind Vingegaard in the general classification standings. Despite Evenepoel gaining the most time among the leading contenders, the stage further solidified Pogacar's position as the favorite for the race.
During the penultimate climb, Pogacar built a lead of at least 10 seconds over Vingegaard before the Dane was brought back into contention with the help of a teammate. A breakaway group of four riders led the hectic stage until the final moments, when Yates attacked from a large chasing group as the race returned to the mountains. Yates took the lead on Col du Noyer, but Carapaz overtook him, pushing ahead and pulling clear on the descent to win by 37 seconds.
Carapaz, who previously wore the yellow jersey after moving into the overall lead on stage three, eventually fell out of contention for the overall race win. Nonetheless, his first Tour stage victory brings his total Grand Tour stage wins to seven, with three each from the Giro and Vuelta.
Meanwhile, Eritrea's Biniam Girmay recovered from a crash on Tuesday to finish within the peloton, maintaining his pursuit of a historic green jersey win. Girmay, who became the first Black African to win a Tour stage earlier in the race, beat Jasper Philipsen in an intermediate sprint to increase his lead in the points classification by one point.
Thursday's stage 18 will follow another hilly route before two decisive days in the mountains, which will likely determine the outcome of the race.
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