Rubén Plaza Molina of Lampre-Merida has won stage sixteen of the 102nd Tour De France.
Stage sixteen, was a 201km stage from Bourg-de-Peage and Gap and saw 170 riders start minus BMC’s Greg Van Avermaet, whose wife is expecting a baby.
After five kilometres, a group of twenty nine riders had taken a small lead over the peloton which had Chris Froome in the leader’s jersey, Joaquin Rodriquez in the KOM jersey as Froome was in yellow, Nairo Quintana in white and Peter Sagan, who was part of this break in the green points jersey.
Sagan was also part of a twelve man group which split from this group of twenty nine along with Andriy Grivko (Astana), Christophe Riblon (AG2R), Thomas De Gendt (Lotto Soudal), Simon Geschke (Giant Aplecin), Marco Haller (Katusha), Bob Jungels (Trek), Nelson Oliveira (Lampre), Ruben Plaza Molina (Lampre), Daniel Navarro (Cofidis), Pierrick Fedrigo (Bretagne Séché), Serge Pauwels (MTN).
With thirty one kilometres gone, this group were 1.05 ahead of Erviti, Hansen, Golas, Trentin, Voeckler, Didier, Irizar, Mate, Pantano, Perichon, Boasson-Hagen et Teklehaimanot with Barta 1.35 down and the peloton some five minutes back down the road.
They extended their lead over the peloton to 6.25 before Team Sky’s Peter Kennaugh, the British road race champion, who had been suffering with a cold was forced to abandon the race, meaning that only four teams in the race still had their full compliment of nine riders.
Helped by a tailwind, the twelve escapers were able to cover 53.6 kms in the first hour of a stage and with 122kms to go, the twelve were 1.13 ahead of the chasing group and nearly six minutes ahead of the peloton.
At Die on the D93 road, Peter Sagan of Tinkoff Saxo took the day’s intermediate sprint and the twenty points to take his total 380 ahead of Andre Greipel’s 316.
Through the feedzone at Le Claps and the twelve leaders were joined by the twelve chasers as the gap to the peloton went out to 9.35 with 93kms left.
On the category two Col de Cabre climb, Rafal Majka of Tinkoff Saxo crashed in the peloton who were now 12.20 behind the group out front.
Serge Pauwels took the points on the climb ahead of Thomas De Gendt before the race moved into the Hautes-Alpes department.
There were a few brief attacks but Grand Tour specialist Adam Hansen of Lotto Soudal was able to get twelve seconds clear.
The peloton were clearly just getting through the stage ahead of the rest day and the gap went out to 18.17 as Marco Haller joined Adam Hansen in front of the race.
Into Gap for the first time and the peloton twenty minutes down, Hansen and Haller started on the category two the 1,268m Col de Manse climb which was 8.9kms long with average gradients of 5.6%.
Hansen and Haller were caught by Gesche, Riblon, Sagan, Plaza and Teklehaimanot and then Rubén Plaza Molina of Lampre-Merida, who had considered retiring last year, surged ahead and took a 27 second lead three kilometres from the top of the climb.
Plaza was over the climb first and went into time trial mode for the final twelve kilometres. Behind him, Peter Sagan who was second on the climb was being marked by the rest of his group.
With eight kilometres left, Sagan put in an attack which was followed by Pantano who had taken the final point on the climb.
Sagan was 43 seconds down but he was a Slovakian on a mission on the D314 road, taking risks a plenty. But when Plaza took the N94 road, he was still thirty seconds ahead with just under three kilometres left.
A kilometre later and Plaza still had a lead of five hundred metres. The Lampre-Merida rider extended his lead and he took the win in 4.30.10 with Peter Sagan second yet again,
followed by Pantano, Geschke, Jungels, Riblon, Teklehaimanot, De Gendt, Mate and Tommy Voeckler of Europcar.
As the group of GC contenders was making their way to the finish line, Geraint Thomas was shoulder-barged into a telegraph pole by Warren Barguil and he disappeared down into a ditch, just before a wood.
Thankfully, he was able to get back on his bike and finish the stage, nineteen minutes down.