Warren Barguil took his second stage win and the fourth for Team Sunweb at this year’s Tour de France today, as he soloed to the stage 18 victory atop the Col d’Izoard. Chris Froome (Team Sky) retained the yellow jersey with just three stages remaining.
Alexei Lutsenko (Astana) started the summit finish to the Izoard alone but 6.5 kilometres before the summit, he was passed by Darwin Atapuma (UAE Team Emirates).
Meanwhile Barguil and Alberto Contador (Trek-Segafredo) attacked from the yellow jersey group. Barguil continued chasing on his own as Contador was dropped and with 1.5km to go, Barguil caught Atapuma before dropping him and soloing to the stage win. Barring accident, Barguil also secured the mountains jersey.
Back in the yellow jersey group, Romain Bardet (AG2R La Mondiale) attacked under the 3km to go banner. Froome went after him before being joined by Rigoberto Uran (Cannondale-Drapac). Bardet went on to take third place and four bonus seconds with Froome in fourth.
Froome now leads Bardet by 23″ with Uran a further 6″ behind while Fabio Aru dropped to fifth with three stages to go including the individual time trial in Marseille on the penultimate day.
“This is really fantastic, I can’t believe it,” said Barguil after the finish. “It’s really a dream to take another win. I wanted to take some extra time in the GC so I just rode my own climb and paced myself to the top. I managed to close to the leader and then when I still had the legs left, I continued to the line. It’s brilliant for us to have four stage victories now, it’s unbelievable.”
