31km to destiny
STAGE 20 TIME TRIAL IS ALL THAT STANDS BETWEEN GERAINT THOMAS AND SPORTING IMMORTALITY AS THE TOUR DE FRANCE WINNER
GERAINT Thomas is in pole position to become the first Welshman to win the Tour de France after a thrilling stage 19 in the Pyrenees.
He withstood a flurry of attacks from his rivals to hold a commanding 2min 5sec lead over second placed Tom Dumoulin (Sunweb) in the general classification.
“It was good to get through that day. I’m pretty tired,” said Thomas afterwards.
“We knew we would come under a lot of attacks. When Mikel Landa went early in the stage we were under a bit of pressure, but the boys in the team were really good.”
Fourth-placed Primoz Roglic put in a huge effort to overtake third-placed Chris Froome in the standings. Roglic is now 13 seconds ahead of Froome and 19 behind Dutchman Dumoulin.
The former ski jumper attacked on the Aubisque – the fourth of the giant mountains that had to be negotiated during the 200.5km Queen stage of the Tour from Lourdes to Laruns – and threw caution to the wind on the 21km descent to the finish.
The Slovenian rode away from the chasers to deservedly win the stage by 19 seconds from Thomas and French favourite Romain Bardet.
Thomas said: “I was able to respond to the attacks, which was good, but the descent was fast.
“I didn’t like to see Roglic ride away, but I thought I would leave the chasing to Tom.
“I never felt like I was going to get dropped so I was always in control in that respect but, for sure, it was hard.
“All I had to do was follow Tom and stick to him like glue. It was the first time during the race I felt he was tired.”
Twice Olympic gold medallist Thomas, who is bidding to become the first Welshman to wear the winner’s yellow jersey in Paris tomorrow night, has just two more stages to negotiate.
And his margin should, barring a calamity, be enough to hold off the challenge of specialists Dumoulin and Roglic in today’s 31km individual time trial, which will decide the final order with a ceremonial stage into Paris to complete the three-week journey around France.
“Starting last in it is definitely the best place and it’s nice to have a two-minute buffer, but I will do what I have done every day and ride as hard as I can,” added Thomas.
STANDINGS Stage 19 (Lourdes to Laruns, 200km):
1
Primoz Roglic (Slo) LottoNL-Jumbo 5hrs 28mins 17secs, 2 GERAINT THOMAS (Gbr) Team Sky at 19s, 3 Romain Bardet (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale, 4 Daniel Martin (Irl) UAE Team Emirates, 5 Rafal Majka (Pol) Bora-Hansgrohe, 6 Tom Dumoulin (Ned) Team Sunweb, 7 Mikel Landa (Spa) Movistar Team, 8 Chris Froome (Gbr) Team Sky all at same time, 9 Steven Kruijswijk (Ned) LottoNL-Jumbo at 31s, 10 Ilnur Zakarin (Rus) Katusha-Alpecin at same time
Leading general classification after stage 19:
1 GERAINT THOMAS (Gbr) Team Sky 79hrs 49mins 31secs, 2 Tom Dumoulin (Ned) Team Sunweb at 2m 05s, 3 Primoz Roglic (Slo) LottoNL-Jumbo at 2m 24s, 4 Chris Froome (Gbr) Team Sky at 2m 37s, 5 Steven Kruijswijk (Ned) LottoNL-Jumbo at 4m 37s, 6 Mikel Landa (Spa) Movistar Team at 4m 40s, 7 Romain Bardet (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale at 5m 15s, 8 Daniel Martin (Irl) UAE Team Emirates at 6m 39s, 9 Nairo Quintana (Col) Movistar Team at 10m 26s, 10 Ilnur Zakarin (Rus) KatushaAlpecin at 11m 49s