Bardet Wins Tour De France Stage 19

Last updated : 22 July 2016 By CNS Sport

Chris Froome moved nearer winning the Tour De France for the third time in four years when he finished safely on the nineteenth stage of the 103rd Tour De France.

Stage nineteen and it's Western Europe's highest peak: the Mont Blanc which culmnates at an altitude of 4808.73m for the riders to tackle at the end of a 146km stage from Albertville.

Chris Froome went into the stage with a 3.52 lead over Bauke Mollema and 4.16 over Adam Yates on a day where the clouds where shrouding the Alps.

Twenty riders in Alexey Lutsenko (Astana), Robert Kiserlovski and Rafal Majka (Tinkoff), Alexis Vuillermoz (AG2R-La Mondiale), George Bennett (LottoNL-Jumbo), Pierre Rolland (Cannondale-Drapac), Markus Burghardt and Amaël Moinard (BMC), Natnael Berhane (Dimension Data), Laurens ten Dam (Giant-Alpecin), Emmanuel Buchman (Bora-Argon 18), Rui Costa (Lampre-Merida), Thomas De Gendt and Tony Gallopin (Lotto-Soudal), Tony Martin (Etixx-Quick Step), Daniel Navarro (Cofidis), Michael Matthews (Orica-BikeExchange), Eduardo Sepulveda and Vegard Breen (Fortuneo-Vital Concept) formed a break and got 4.15 ahead.

That was down to 3.50 as Michael Matthews took the sprint at Doussard with Thomas De Gendt in second.

The category one col de la Forclaz de Montmin climb was next. This was 9.8kms long with an average gradient of 6.9%. Thomas De Gendt beat KOM leader Rafal Majka to the points.

Majka, De Gendt and Vuillermoz went clear on the descent and with 92.6kms to go, they were 32 seconds ahead of the chasers and 3.36 ahead of the peloton.

There was a crash and Tom Dumoulin went down. He got back on his bike but the pain was too much and the Dutchman was forced to abandon the race with a possible broken wrist.

Eleven riders in Lutsenko, Kiserlovski, Majka, Vuillermoz, Bennett, Pantano, Rolland, Moinard, Rui Costa, Gallopin and Navarro were on the front on the Montée de Bisanne.hors category climb on the D6123 road.

Thomas De Gendt was caught by the peloton before Majka took the points on the climb and more or less sewed up the KOM Jersey.

As the rain came down, Pierre Rolland of Cannondale crashed but was able to get back onto his bike as Rui Costa went off the front.

With twenty kilometres to go, Costa's lead was less than minute on wet roads which saw Navarro and two other riders go down with 12.2kms to go. Bauke Mollema went down as did the race leader who took a team mate's bike and got back into the stage along with Vincenzo Nibali who was following.

Navarro was forced to abandon as those left in the race started on the climb up to the ski resort of Saint Gervais Mont Blanc which was hosting the race for the third time with the last in 1992.

AG2R Romain Bardet joined Costa ahead of the yellow jersey group of Froome, Henao, Landa, Poels (Sky), Quintana, Valverde, I. Izagirre, Moreno (Movistar), Aru, Rosa (Astana), Kreuziger (Tinkoff), Porte, Caruso (BMC), Barguil (Giant), Rodriguez (Katusha), Meintjes (Lampre), D. Martin (Etixx) and Adam Yates (Orica).

With just over three kilometres to go, Dan Martin attacked as Bardet took over the lead on the stage.

Under the flam rouge and Bardet was clear of Costa and 42 seconds ahead of the yellow jersey group.

Fabio Aru of Astana tried to attack but Valverde was on him whilst up the road, Romain Bardet trode away and became tne first Frenchman to win a stage in this race with victory in 4.14.08 ahead of Joaquim Rodríguez and Alejandro Valverde.

Froome finished 36 seconds down with Yates finishing 58 seconds down which meant that Bardet was now second in the race overall..