Navardauskas claims Tour 19th stage but Nibali stays in yellow
Print Edition
LITHUANIA’S Ramunas Navardauskas won the 19th stage of the Tour de France, a 208.5-kilometer ride from Maubourguet to Bergerac yesterday as Italian Vincenzo Nibali retained the overall leader’s yellow jersey.
Garmin-Sharp rider Navardauskas attacked in a short climb close to the finish and never looked back as German John Degenkolb took second place.
Norway’s Alexander Kristoff, a two-time stage winner, finished third after the main bunch was split by a late crash.
All the riders from the main pack were credited with the same time as the incident happened with less than three kilometers left.
Nibali still leads France’s Thibaut Pinot by 7 minutes, 10 seconds and another Frenchman, Jean-Christophe Peraud, who crashed but said he was fine, by 7:23, ahead of today’s decisive time trial.
Navardauskas powered away from the pack in the fourth-category climb of the Cote de Monbazillac 13 kilometers from the finish.
Pinot’s FDJ.fr team led the peloton in the descent and on the flat portion leading to the line, Cannondale and Tinkoff-Saxo chased the Garmin-Sharp rider who was 25 seconds ahead with five kilometers left.
With just under three kilometers remaining, Slovakia’s Peter Sagan was involved in the crash as well as France’s Romain Bardet who is fifth in the overall standings and his AG2R-La Mondiale teammate Peraud.
Nibali won Thursday’s stage, his fourth of the Tour, to all but secure victory when the race ends tomorrow in Paris. The remaining drama is mainly about who will join him on the winners’ podium, with Alejandro Valverde saying he needs to recover quickly if he is to reclaim a place in the top-three.
The 34-year-old Spaniard dropped from second to fourth at the end of Thursday's last of three Pyrenean mountain stages.
Realistically it means the only chance to turn things around will be today’s race against the clock, and Valverde says the most important thing for that is to recover physically, and quickly.
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