Tour de France: Barguil wins on the Izoard

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Warren Barguil (Team Sunweb) continued his superb Tour de France with a summit finish victory on the Col d'Izoard, cementing his place at the top of the mountains classification. The Frenchman attacked with Alberto Contador (Trek-Segafredo) near the foot of the climb but left the former champion behind to hoover up all the breakaway riders to claim his second stage win at this year’s Tour de France.

Darwin Atapuma (UAE Team Emirates) looked like he might just take his first Grand Tour stage win but was dropped by Barguil in the final kilometre and had to settle for second once again.

Romain Bardet (AG2R La Mondiale) edged himself closer to the yellow jersey by taking the bonus seconds on offer for third with Chris Froome in fourth. Froome still leads the race overall by 23 seconds over Bardet.

After a challenging start to the season and struggling in the opening mountain stages, Barguil has come into his own in the second and third week. With Atapuma less than two minutes up the road as AG2R La Mondiale moved off the front of the peloton inside the final 10 kilometres, Barguil saw his opportunity. Contador came with him but it was clear that the younger rider was too strong for the Spaniard.

Barguil paced himself up the climb, picking off one breakaway rider after another. He had the last, Atapuma, in his sights with just over a kilometre to go and surged clear of him with 800 metres remaining. He moves up to ninth overall, moving ahead of Contador in the standings.

"It's really fantastic. I can't believe it it's a dream for me," Barguil said afterwards. "It has been a dream three weeks. Last night I was discussing it with Michael and we never would have expected that we could have the polka-dot and the green jersey and to win two stages for him and one for me, now two. It's just unbelievable.

"I was waiting to see how it went. I wanted to take some time on Contador to maybe win one spot. I attacked and we came to Mollema and I heard him say slower to Mollema when he was pulling and I passed him and I made my pace to the top. In the last kilometres, I saw Atapuma ahead. I was behind him in the Tour de Suisse and I closed the gap in the last climb and today I made it. It's just crazy."

Mikel Landa (Team Sky) drew first blood as the general classification contenders duked it out behind Barguil, going up the road as his teammate Michal Kwiatkowski pulled over, his day done. Froome kept an eye on his other opponents, chasing down attacks from Dan Martin (Quick-Step Floors) and then Bardet.

Landa still up the road, Froome put the hammer down with around three kilometres remaining. Bardet and Rigoberto Uran were initially unable to go with him but they chased him down on a short descent and the trio caught up with Landa. The four rode together until the final kilometre when Bardet tried again to distance the yellow jersey. Unlike Peyragudes, Froome was able to follow, but Bardet closed the gap slightly by taking the bonus seconds on the line to move ahead of Uran into second overall.

How it happened

The sun was out and the smell of Paris was in the air with just one more mountain stage to overcome. The 179km ride to the Col d'Izoard would be the last opportunity for many riders to take a stage win and for a lot of the general classification riders to enact some change in the standings.

With that in mind, there was more than enough interest in getting into the breakaway. After several attempts, Thomas De Gendt (Lotto-Soudal) continued his mission to be awarded super combatif on Sunday. The Belgian surged clear with Lilian Clamejane (Direct Energie), Alessandro de Marchi (BMC Racing), Elie Gesbert (Fortuneo-Oscaro) in the opening 10 kilometres.

That was not the break decided and, pushed on by a determined Astana team, a sizeable group of 47 riders disconnected with the peloton and joined forces with the initial leaders. Among them were Darwin Atapuma (UAE Team Emirates), Stephen Cummings (Dimension Data), Cyril Gautier (AG2R La Mondiale), Thomas Voeckler (Direct Energie), Daniel Navarro (Cofidis) and Alexey Lutsenko (Astana).

The only teams who didn't have riders in the move were that of race leader Chris Froome, Team Sky, Bora-Hansgrohe and LottoNL-Jumbo. Team Sky seemed content to let it get plenty of space, more concerned about keeping their place in the yellow jersey than worrying about the stage win. The race settled into a pacey tempo, but there were members of the break not too keen on having another 53 men for company. De Gendt tried time and again to shake things out, but was caught every time.

Back in the peloton, Bora-Hansgrohe took up the fruitless task of setting the pace on the peloton. It was unclear if their directeur sportif was punishing them for missing the break or they were trying to defend Buchmann's 15th place from Brice Feillu (Fortuneo-Oscaro), who had got into the break. Sky was happy to let them self flagellate and enjoyed the brief respite from the donkey work.

The breakaway breaks

As the race hit the second climb and the first stern test of the day, attacks began to come from the breakaway and the weaker were sacrificed to the mountain gods. On stage 17, Navarro had shown that he was in good form and attacked in sight of the top of the climb. Lutsenko, Romain Sicard (Direct Energie) and Tony Gallopin (Lotto-Soudal) set off in chase of the Spaniard. Atapuma, also in Wednesday's break, jumped clear to close the gap.

Meanwhile, AG2R La Mondiale nudged their way to the front of the peloton. Belgian champion Oliver Naesen was one of the riders tasked with burning a few riders off from the peloton. He did just that and by the foot of the Izoard AG2R La Mondiale had brought back the gap from over eight minutes to under four.

As the front group began chopping and changing on the road to the Izoard, with just over 20 kilometres remaining, Lutsenko broke free, taking Romain Hardy (Fortuneo-Oscaro) and Nicolas Edet (Cofidis) with him. Edet and Hardy fell by the wayside though and Lutsenko was left to ride his own race out front. In the group behind, Gallopin expressed his frustrations as they failed to organise a proper chase for some time.

The Izoard

Lutsenko began to fade on the Izoard and Atapuma pushed on behind. The Colombian first dropped Navarro and then Gallopin, before eventually catching Lutsenko with just over six kilometres to go. The rider who has had so many close calls at Grand Tours looked like he might just take his first stage win at the Tour de France.

In the peloton, AG2R La Mondiale had run out of riders, and Barguil and Contador saw their chance to attack. With five kilometres to go, the gap to Atapuma was just 1:45 and there was an opportunity to spoil the party. Barguil proved too strong for Contador and forged ahead alone.

With four kilometres remaining, Michal Kwiatkowski's day was done in dramatic style. As soon as he quite literally stopped on the climb, Landa launched his own attack. The other GC contenders tried to react, with Martin and Bardet both attacking, only to be brought back by Froome. Eventually, with three kilometres remaining, the yellow jersey made his own move. The surge in pace brought back Landa, but couldn't shake his two nearest rivals Bardet and Uran.

While all this was going on, Atapuma's dreams were shattered as Barguil caught and then passed him in the final kilometre to put the cherry on the top of his mountains classification victory with his second stage win.

Bardet was not done with his attempts to crack Froome and the Frenchman made another attempt on the yellow jersey with 500 metres to go. Froome had his number and tailed him in for fourth place to keep the yellow jersey ahead of Saturday's key time trial.

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