VALENCE, France :Italian Jonathan Milan claimed his second victory in this year’s Tour de France when he won a crash-disrupted sprint in the 17th stage on Wednesday.
Milan prevailed in a 10-man sprint after the peloton was held up behind a massive crash with just one kilometre to go as riders went down on slippery roads in a rainy finish in southeastern France.
Eritrean Biniam Girmay was attended to by race doctors.
Tadej Pogacar crossed the finish line safely to retain the overall leader’s yellow jersey.
“I’m really happy and without words, I have to say. After surviving (the ascent to the Mont Ventoux on Tuesday) I didn’t survive alone,” said Milan, who holds the green jersey for the points classification.
“I survived all this with the help of my teammates. I really have to practice this because without all this I would not be here. Maybe I would have already dropped in one of the climbs (of the day).
“So, with the help every single day of my teammates, we achieved this result. Today was a really tough stage… We controlled it from the beginning, of course, with the help of some other teams. But they helped me also when I dropped. In the first climb, in the second one, they really did a good pace.”
Frenchmen Quentin Pacher and Mathieu Burgaudeau as well as Jonas Abrahamsen of Norway and Italian Vincenzo Albanese broke away early but stood little chance against the collective power of the sprinters’ teams.
With the peloton breathing down their necks, Abrahamsen went solo with 11km remaining, only to be reined in 4.3km from the line.
Milan was the strongest in the reduced sprint, edging out Jordi Meeus of Belgium and Denmark’s Tobias Lund Andresen, who were second and third respectively.
Thursday’s 18th stage is a brutal mountain trek between Vif and the Col de la Loze, one of the most feared ascents in the Tour de France.
