LA PLAGNE, France :Thymen Arensman claimed his second victory in this year’s Tour de France when he benefited from the top guns’ waiting game to prevail in the 19th stage, the last mountain trek of the race on Friday.
The Ineos Grenadiers rider, whose team have been facing doping questions related to their glorious days as Team Sky, went solo in the final climb to La Plagne before crossing the line two seconds ahead of Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar, who were second and third respectively.
Slovenian Pogacar retained the overall leader’s yellow jersey and leads Vingegaard by 4:24 going into the final two stages and is widely expected to win a fourth title if he avoids a major incident.
German Florian Lipowitz took fourth place on the shortened stage to cement his third place overall, stretching his advantage over fourth-placed Oscar Onley of Britain by 41 seconds to 1:03.
It would have taken a colossal coup from Vingegaard to topple Pogacar on the final mountain test in the Alps, but the Visma-Lease a Bike rider only tried within the last 100 metres to take two seconds off of the Slovenian’s lead, with Pogacar emerging as the puppet master of the peloton.
A leading trio featuring France’s Lenny Martinez and Valentin Paret Peintre as well as former Tour runner-up Primoz Roglic, reached the Col du Pre with a small gap of a chasing group after a brutal 12.2-km ascent at 7.7 per cent.
The peloton, controlled by Pogacar’s UAE Emirates-XRG, trailed by less than a minute.
With two kilometres left in the climb up to the Cormet de Roselend (5.9km at 6.9 per cent), Paret Peintre and Roglic shook off Martinez, but only briefly as the Bahrain-Victorious rider clawed his way back.
Roglic went solo in the descent into Bourg Saint Maurice, dropping Martinez and Paret Peintre, who were quickly caught by the bunch.
Roglic was then swallowed two kilometres before the final climb and spat out immediately.
Austrian Felix Gall, gunning for a top five finish in Paris, accelerated 14.5km from the finish with Arensman, Pogacar and Vingegaard reacting.
Pogacar made his own move 14km from the top with Vingegaard and Arensman the only riders able to get into his slipstream.
Pogacar eventually let Arensman go and seemed content with setting a decent tempo to keep the Dutchman within reach, but the Slovenian eventually did not make the effort to go for a fifth stage win this year.
