The Scotsman

Emotional day for Kwiatkowsk­i as he reaps reward of team sacrifice

● Ineos rider lands his first-ever Grand Tour stage win as Roglic stays in yellow

- By IAN PARKER

Michal Kwiatk ow ski won stage 18 of the Tour de France and Richard Carapaz moved into the polka dot jersey as the Ineos Grenadiers set about salvaging their race following the withdrawal of Egan Bernal.

Primoz Roglic retained the yellow jersey and his 57- second advantage over fellow Slovenian Tadej Pogacar at the top of the general classifica­tion but the day belonged to Ineos, with Kwiatkows ki and Car apazthef in al two survivors of what had been a 32-man breakaway on the 175km stage from Meribel to La Roche-sur-foron.

The pair made the approach to La Roche -sur-foron deep

in conversati­on, patting each on the back under the flamme rouge, before Kwiatk ow ski crossed the line first to give the Pole, pictured, his first Grand Tour stage win.

Ineos have been active in breaks since Bernal shipped time in Sunday’s stage on Le Grand Colombier before withdrawin­g from the race with a back injury on Wednesday morning following further losses on Tuesday.

The win was emotional for the popular Kwiatkowsk­i who has sacrificed his talents in the service of others for several years but got his reward here.

“That was someday ,” the 2014 world champion said. “I can’t describe how grateful I am to the whole team and to Richard. It was an incredible day for us and I will never forget that. I’ve had some nice moments in cycling but that was a new experience. I’ve got goosebumps for the last I don’t know how many kilometres because I knew the gap is so big that we’ re going to make it and we both really enjoyed the last kilometres.

“I think we’re going to celebrate big time tonight.”

Carapaz will need to wait for another shot at his own first Tour stage win, butt hereigning­Gi rod’ Italia champion got the reward of polka dots instead.

The Ecuadorian had been battling Team Sunweb’s Marc Hirschi for mountain points as both riders looked to overhaul

Pogacar in the category, but a crash for Hirschi on a descent midway through the stage put Carapaz in the driving seat and he now leads the category by two points.

The main group of contenders crossed the line a little under two minutes later, with no change at the top. Miguel Angel Lopez remains third and Richie Po rte recovered from a puncture to cling onto fourth place and stay on course for a best career Tour finish. However, Adam Yates lost touch with the yellow jersey group on the final climb and lost two places, dropping back to seventh overall as Spanish duo Mikel Landa and Enric Mas moved up to fifth and sixth respective­ly.

Earlier in the day, Irishman Sam Bennett used the intermedia­te sprint to stretch his advantage over Peter Sagan to 52 points in the battle for the green jersey.

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