New Straits Times

Roglic powers to 19th stage win

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LARUNS (France): Britain’s Geraint Thomas stretched his Tour de France yellow jersey lead on Friday as Slovenian Primoz Roglic won the 19th stage in controvers­ial fashion to push defending champion Chris Froome off the virtual podium.

Thomas, who has held the race lead since stage 11 having won back-to-back stages in the Alps, finished second on the final stage in the high mountains at 19secs behind Roglic after the LottoJumbo rider had launched a series of small attacks before the summit of the Aubisque.

The Welshman’s final sprint to clinch second place earned him six bonus seconds, which increased his overall lead on Dutch rival Tom Dumoulin (Sunweb) to 2min 05secs ahead of the penultimat­e-stage time trial on Saturday.

Roglic moved up to third overall at 2:24 behind Thomas, with Froome now fourth at 2:37.

But while the 28-year-old Slovenian celebrated, Dumoulin was furious at the finish, claiming Roglic “used the slipstream of the motorbike” that had moved in front of him shortly after the summit to build an advantage which, in the end, proved decisive.

Roglic, a former ski jumper, was a constant thorn in the side of Team Sky on the final climb, where his accelerati­ons left fourtime champion Froome struggling to hold the wheel on several occasions.

The Slovenian redoubled his efforts shortly after cresting the summit, defying the shrouds of mist to accelerate away from Thomas, Froome, Dumoulin, Spaniard Mikel Landa and Frenchman Romain Bardet to leave them in a desperate chase on the 20 km descent to the finish.

Although Thomas’s yellow jersey bid was not at stake, except in the event of catastroph­e, Sky are desperate to see Froome finish among the podium places in Paris on Sunday and were in no mood to give Roglic a free run to the finish.

Froome managed to limit the damage by following wheels most of the way down before finishing eighth and last from the sevenman group of favourites who crossed the line 19secs behind Roglic.

Fans will be expecting Froome, a six-time Grand Tour champion, to overcome his 13-sec deficit to Roglic and secure a place in the top three.

But Roglic, who only took up cycling six years ago, is no slouch in the race against the clock. Six of his 22 profession­al wins are from time trials, including one from the Giro d’Italia in 2016.

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