Romain Bardet (Ag2R) won stage 19 of the Tour de France on Friday, escaping the yellow jersey group on the lower slopes of Mont Blanc and powering away from breakaway survivor Rui Costa (Lampre-Merida) in the closing kilometres to take the win by 23 seconds over Joachim Rodriguez (Katusha) and Alejandro Valverde (Movistar). The young Frenchman moved to second overall.
Race leader Chris Froome (Team Sky) survived a scare after he hit the deck with Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) on a descent before the final climb, but his Team Sky teammates dutifully pulled him back to the group and out of trouble.
“I was up front trying to stay safe and stay out of trouble,” Froome said. “I think I just hit one of the white lines and lost my front wheel. I’m lucky I wasn’t seriously injured, just lost a bit of skin and banged my knee a bit.”
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Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo), however, was not so lucky, going off the road before the final climb and failing to regain contact, surrendering his GC position of second overall at the start and slipping to 10th.
"At the bottom, I tried to come back, I had to try and close it there as fast as I could, otherwise it would have been difficult. Pete Stetina pulled on the flat part, but when you start 20 seconds down, I couldn't close it and I just exploded.”
Adam Yates (Orica-BikeExchange) fought back from a mechanical before the penultimate climb, slipping to fourth at the end of the day.
Tour de France stage 19 highlights video
How it unfolded
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