Roglic wins 17th stage
> Froome in control as Aru slips down the rankings
FORMER champion ski-jumper Primoz Roglic took a sensational solo victory on the mountainous 17th stage of the Tour de France yesterday.
Chris Froome came home third to stretch his overall lead to 27 seconds as Rigoberto Uran moved up to second and Fabio Aru dropped to fourth, with Romain Bardet remaining third.
Slovenia’s Roglic, 27, was junior world skijumping champion in 2007 but became a professional cyclist in 2014.
He was part of an initial 33-man breakaway that was whittled down to just six riders when Roglic attacked solo 6.4km from the summit of the hors category Col du Galibier, which at more than 2,600 metres above sea level was the highest point of this year’s Tour.
He crested the climb, 28km from the finish in Serre-Chevalier, with a lead of just over a minute and half on a group of chasers including the top contenders.
On the descent, Roglic easily managed his lead while a five-man chase group developed, including Froome.
But Italian Aru, who started the day second at 18sec, had been dropped by an acceleration from Bardet just before the Galibier summit and he was chasing desperately to limit his losses.
Uran took second, 1min 13sec behind Roglic, to snatch six bonus seconds that moved him up to second, on the same time as Bardet.
Froome also took four bonus seconds for finishing third to help increase his lead.
Aru came 31sec later to drop to fourth at 53sec ahead of today’s second straight Alpine stage with its brutal finish at the summit of the imposing Col d’Izoard.
Earlier, sprint star Marcel Kittel quit the Tour de France yesterday after a crash on the 183km, 17th stage in the Alps from La Mure to Serre-Chevalier.
The 29-year-old German was leading the sprinters’ green jersey competition at the time he abandoned having won five stages so far.
“Another sad news: Green jersey @ marcelkittel, and winner of five #TDF2017 stages, has stopped at the top of Col de la Croix de Fer,” said the German’s Quick-Step team on Twitter.
What had been a hugely successful Tour for Kittel quickly turned sour as he crashed 20km into yesterday’s stage.
He was cut and bloodied and even needed to change a shoe while hanging onto his team car as the race continued.
The peloton led by race leader Chris Froome’s Team Sky sat up and waited for Kittel but once the climbing began with the second category Col d’Ornon, the German started to lose touch with the bunch.
By the 24km long hors category Col de la Croix de Fer just over 100km from the finish, he was losing serious ground and the prospect of getting to the finish line within the required time delay was diminishing, so Kittel quit.
“We might not have Paris, but we’ll always have these fantastic wins! Thank you, @ marcelkittel!” added Quick-Step. – AFP