Roundabout way to win
After two second-place finishes, Edvald Boasson Hagen finally got a stage victory at this Tour de France.
Chris Froome and the other top riders took it easy, saving themselves for their last big fight this weekend.
Boasson Hagen, from Norway, caught the right breakaways on the longest stage and used all his guile and strength to hold off chasers in the final section yesterday.
Boasson Hagen was part of a 20-man group Froome and Team Sky gave freedom to escape from the peloton because none of them presented a threat to his overall lead.
After two energy-sapping days of climbs in the Alps, Froome and his rivals had their sights set instead on the time trial overnight in Marseille that was set to determine the podium order before the race ends in Paris tomorrow (New Zealand time).
At the finish of stage 19 in Salonde Provence, Boasson Hagen and German rider Nikias Arndt went right around a roundabout while others went left. Their route proved shorter.
Capitalising on that slight lead, Boasson Hagen left Arndt behind with a quick acceleration and used his strength on the flat to power to the finish. Arndt was second, five seconds back.
Third-placed Jens Keukeleire was among those who went left around the roundabout and immediately realised they’d made a mistake, as Boasson Hagen pulled away.
“That’s when it struck me: We should have taken right,” Keukeleire said. “He’s one of those riders, give him 10 metres and he’s gone.”
It was Boasson Hagen’s third career stage win at the Tour, after his first two in 2011. He said he did his homework, studying the stage finish and identifying the shorter route around the roundabout.
“I was hunting for opportunities, and then the roundabout arrived,” he said. “I understood that going right would be quicker.”
Froome’s group, which included the main race contenders, was still riding as Boasson Hagen celebrated his win. The peloton eventually rolled in at a leisurely pace more than 12 minutes after Boasson Hagen claimed the first stage win for the Dimension Data team at this tour.
The overall standings remained unchanged, with Froome leading French rider Romain Bardet by 23 seconds and Rigoberto Uran, of Colombia, by 29 seconds.
With no major difficulties, the 222.5km stage from Embrun in the Alps offered no real opportunity for Froome’s rivals to claw back time. Instead, they and Froome settled for a quiet ride while the 20 in front hunted the stage victory.
“We could just sit on the wheels and recover a little bit,” Froome said. “Everyone was quite happy to sit back.”
That breakaway group split again with 20km left. Boasson Hagen was among nine riders who ditched the others with a furious burst, leaving him in the right group to contest the stage victory. But among that leading nine, everyone but Arndt and Boasson Hagen then went left around the roundabout.