Second stage win for Yates

CYCLING

BURY’S Simon Yates soloed to his second Tour de France victory of the week.

Mitchelton-Scott’s Yates attacked with 8.7km left of the steep climb above Foix to claim stage 15 to the Prat d’Albis and follow up his victory on Thursday’s stage 12 to Bagneres-deBigorre.

Behind, GroupamaFDJ’s Thibaut Pinot attacked the reduced group of favourites and distanced Geraint Thomas, though the Welshman put in a late dig of his own to ensure he remained above the Frenchman in the general classification.

Leader Julian Alaphilippe, though, finally showed the signs of weakness which have been expected from a rider never considered a contender before the Tour began - but who enjoyed an 11th day in yellow on Tuesday. Yates did not need to worry about the battles unfolding behind him as he took another superb victory.

The 26-year-old was active in a large breakaway which included several riders licking their wounds from the previous day, with Nairo Quintana, Dan Martin, and Romain Bardet all involved.

Simon Geschke attacked from the group on the steep Mur de Peguere around 45km from the finish of the 185km stage from Limoux, but Yates joined him at the summit and they raced clear of the rest.

Yates then struck out for victory early on the final climb, having the power to hold both a surging Mikel Landa and the late attack of Pinot at bay.

●● Britain’s Simon Yates celebrates as he crosses the finish line to win the fifteenth stage of the Tour de France cycling race on Sunday

“I’m very proud of what I did there,” Yates said. “It was extremely hard from the start to the finish today but I raced how I like to, which is aggressive and I managed to pull it off.

“Today was the other day I had a chance for the stage win and I took it with both hands.”

But as much as Yates, this was also Pinot’s day. Twenty-four hours after his victory on the Tourmalet, the 29-year-old made clear it is he, and not Alaphilippe, who is France’s best chance of ending a 34-year wait for a home winner on the Tour.

Alaphilippe’s advantage over Thomas was cut by 27 seconds to one minute and 35 seconds, but though Thomas moved up he will not be celebrating too much after seeing his rivals race up the road in front of him for a second consecutive day.

After the stage, Thomas said he felt much better than he did on the Tourmalet a day earlier, but chose not to attack at the end as he did not want to help rivals catch Bernal.

Meanwhile, Simon’s twin brother Adam Yates saw his hopes of collecting a Tour de France stage win this week ended after seeing his general classification hopes ended on the Tourmalet.

The Mitchelton-Scott rider had set himself the target of a podium finish on the Tour but that all fell apart on Saturday when he lost nearly seven minutes to his rivals to tumble down out of the top 10, more than 10 minutes in arrears.

He lost another 20 minutes on Sunday as his brother soloed to his second stage win of the week on the Prat d’Albis above Foix, but said that was deliberate as he now looks to give himself some leeway to go in breakaways.

“I’m not interested in chasing top 15 on GC,” Adam Yates said. “I was here to do podium or better. Once that’s gone out of the window you switch mentality and target stages.”

His struggle in the Pyrenees was disappointing as it was almost a repeat of what happened last year, when his GC hopes ended in the Alps at the end of the second week.

“At the moment it’s pretty hard to pinpoint one thing and, really, I don’t want to make any excuses,” he said.

“I’ve been good all season but just not here at the moment.”