Stage 17 saw Simon Geschke (Giant-Alpecin) take his first win at the Tour de France on the climb to Pra-Loup on Wednesday. The German rider rode into the day's breakaway and then attacked to finish solo ahead of Andrew Talansky (Cannondale-Garmin) and Rigoberto Urán (Etixx-QuickStep).
The day also saw third-placed overall Tejay van Garderen (BMC) abandon the race due to an illness and Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo) crash. Chris Froome (Team Sky) maintain his lead in the overall classification and is now sitting 3:10 ahead of Nairo Quintana (Movistar) and 4:09 ahead of Alejandro Valverde (Movistar).
Samuel Sanchez (BMC), on losing team leader Tejay van Garderen
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"It was very hard for us, three days to go to Paris and he's our leader. It was very hard for us. We're going to keep going and keep trying to do our best, but it's a huge blow. We just have to try and recover. We've had a decent Tour so far, we just have to try and put it to the back of our minds. I hope it's not too late. We're all struggling with fatigue at the moment, but losing Tejay is gutting for us as a team.
Simon Geschke (Giant-Alpecin), stage 17 winner in Pra-Loup
“It took me two or three minutes to figure out what I had done. It was important going into the break and then we had to figure out what to do after that. It was a very good group to be in, a lot of guys were hanging on. I had to try something. I went into a break on the long climb and I had to take my chances to win. It was beautiful. When I had so much of an advantage, I knew there was a chance. It was incredible.
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