Stage 17

The road

At the start

The Col de la Loze, and 5,400 metres

Combloux changed everything: Jonas Vingegaard put 1:38 into Tadej Pogačar over twenty-two kilometres and now leads by 1:48. Today is the hardest stage left — 166 kilometres and 5,399 metres of climbing over the Col des Saisies and the Cormet de Roselend, then the Col de la Loze, twenty-eight kilometres up to 2,304 metres with a ramp of twenty-four per cent near the top. Pogačar has nothing left to lose.

How it was won

1. 135 km to go

   Col de la Loze

   The race climbs onto the Tour's highest point and the break is cut in half; the peloton slims to under twenty GC men behind Ineos.

2. 215 km to go

   Pogačar cracks

   Midway up the Loze, 15km from the line, Pogačar suddenly cracks and drifts backwards off the group. With no UAE pressure on Vingegaard, the Tour is definitively lost right here.

3. 313 km to go

   Gall attacks the break

   Up front Felix Gall makes the first move with 13km to go, forging clear of Harper and Simon Yates toward a famous Austrian win.

4. 48 km to go

   Vingegaard alone

   Vingegaard rides solo over the final 8km of the Loze's double-digit gradients, relentlessly extending as Pogačar haemorrhages minutes behind.

5. 5At the line

   Courchevel

   Gall descends and drives up the final ramp for the win; Vingegaard now leads by 7:37, on course for the biggest Tour winning margin since 1997.

The result