Lutsenko romps to victory in stage six of Tour de France

Kazakh Alexey Lutsenko claimed his maiden victory on the Tour de France when he won the sixth stage, a 19km trek from Le Teil yesterday as the top guns again delayed the fight for the general classification.

Astana rider Lutsenko, a former U23 world champion, prevailed from an eightman breakaway at the top of Mont Aigoual to add to his 2017 Vuelta stage win.

Spain’s Jesus Herrada took second place, 55 seconds behind with Belgian Greg van Avermaet in third, 2:15 off the pace.

Briton Adam Yates retained the overall leader’s yellow jersey but with a deficit of 2:53.

“We talked about it in the team bus this morning and we agreed that it was a stage that suited me,” Lutsenko said.

He broke clear in the punishing ascent to the Col de la Lusette, a 11.7km climb at average gradient of 7.3%.

Behind him, the main favourites did not use the ascent to test each other, leaving defending champion Egan Bernal’s Ineos team to set a moderate pace.

“We knew that this climb was tricky, it was a pretty bad surface.

“I think we climbed at our own speed and saved energy, we just tried to stay safe,” Ineos domestique Michal Kwiatkowski said.

Slovenian Tadej Pogacar, who is third overall, suffered an untimely puncture in the climb up to the Col de la Lusette but managed to regain his place in the peloton easily, PR thanks to the bunch’s slow pace.

Today’s seventh stage is a 168km ride from Millau to Lavaur, which is expected to favour the sprint specialists.