Saint-Lary, 23rd of July – 2014
Today’s 124 kilometer rather short 17th stage of Tour de France was packed with climbs. No less than four category 1 climbs and an uphill finish to the HC climb to Saint-Lary Pla d’Adet offered several opportunities to attack and to gain points for the king of the mountain classification, which Tinkoff-Saxo’s Rafal Majka was leading before taking off from Saint-Gaudens. His goal today was the stage win.
The first part of today’s stage was a rather flat stretch but as soon as the pack hit the foot of the first climb to Col du Portillon, Katusha’s and second in the KOM competition was on the attack and he was followed by Tinkoff-Saxo’s Nicolas Roche but the Spaniard took maximum points crossing Portillon first and took over the lead in the mountain classification.
On the following the descent and entering the legendary climb to Col de Peyresourde, Vasil Kyrienka (Sky) managed to create a gap to Roche and his companion on the chase, Jose Herrada (Movistar) while the group with Rodriguez and Rafal Majka was chasing behind. In the peloton, Astana were in charge of the pace making.
Between Peyresourde and the third climb, Roche and Herrada were brought back by the chasers and Roche went to the front of the chase group and started the diesel engine to reel the Sky rider back in and he did he so a few hundred meters before reaching the summit of the penultimate climb. Cresting the climb, Rodriguez was first while Majka was second.
On the early slopes of the uphill finish, Tinkoff-Saxo’s Niclas Roche worked up a promising gap with Pierre Rolland (Europcar), Giovanni Visconti (Movistar) and Amaël Moinard (BMC). With 7.5 kilometers to go, teammate Rafal Majka launched an attack from the chase group and crawled his way up the road to bridge to Roche. Further up the road, Visconti was punishing himself onwards soloing his way up the mountain.
Soon, Rafal Majka had enough of the pace and jumped away narrowing down the gap to Visconti while behind, Nibali was on the chase. With less than 2 kilometers to go, Majka took off and flew towards the finish line to celebrate his second stage win and an extension of his lead in the mountain classification.
Rafal Majka says:
“I’m just so happy about this result and these results that we have accomplished in the last couple of days and today, me teammates really worked hard for me and especially Nico (Roche) was digging hard to set me up on the final climb. I wasn’t so sure about how managing the stage at first but Bjarne told me to go for the stage and if we take the stage, we will have the jersey and here we are,” said a very happy Rafal Majka.
DS, Philippe Maduit was just as content:
“Rafal did such a fine job out there. He was very composed throughout the day and tactically, he rode the stage perfectly. But you can’r underestimate the support from his teammate Nicolas Roche who paced him up the final climb”, says Mauduit.
Vincenzo Nibali still leads overall.
Stage result
1 Rafal Majka (Pol) Tinkoff-Saxo 3:35:29
2 Giovanni Visconti (Ita) Movistar Team 0:00:29
3 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Astana Pro Team 0:00:46
4 Jean-Christophe Peraud (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 0:00
5 Alessandro De Marchi (Ita) Cannondale 0:00:49
6 Pierre Rolland (Fra) Team Europcar 0:00:52
7 Frank Schleck (Lux) Trek Factory Racing 0:01:12
8 Bauke Mollema (Ned) Belkin Pro Cycling Team 0:00
9 Nicolas Roche (Irl) Tinkoff-Saxo 0:01:25
10 Alejandro Valverde Belmonte (Spa) Movistar Team 0:01:35
