The travails of Nairo Quintana may have held the greatest significance as Chris Froome took a huge step towards a third Tour de France title on Wednesday's stage 17, but it was a bad day for another of his rivals, Bauke Mollema, that saw his lead stretch out to nearly two-and-a-half minutes.
Though there was always the feeling that Quintana represented the biggest threat to Froome's stranglehold on the race going into the Alpine denouement, an attack on Mont Ventoux and a strong time trial had seen Mollema emerge, on paper at least, as the Briton's closest challenger.
However, on stage 17, the day after the second rest-day and the first in a quartet of decisive mountain stages, cracks appeared in the Dutchman's armoury as he lost contact with the yellow jersey group on the final kilometers of climb to the Finhaut-Emosson dam in Switzerland.
ADVERTISEMENT
"I didn't have such good legs today," Mollema told a huddle of journalists outside his team bus, revealing he was in trouble well before Richie Porte's attack saw him distanced.
"I already felt it on the second last climb a bit and then on the last climb, when the attacks started, I couldn't follow. I didn't have the legs I had last week. That's a pity but in the last 2k I kept fighting until the finish line not to lose too much time.
"In the morning I still felt good but the first 140 kilometres were quite flat and it's hard to stay how you feel. But on the second last climb already I didn't feel so good. You know it was an important day today and the last one was really steep."
Tour de France stage 17 highlights video
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest News http://ift.tt/2ahL3Yo
No comments:
Post a Comment