Col D’Izoard (France): Frenchman Warren Barguil won his second stage of the Tour de France on the imposing Col d’Izoard on Thursday as compatriot Romain Bardet snatched back four seconds from overall leader Chris Froome. Bardet finished third on the day to take some bonus seconds that lifted him above Rigoberto Uran into second overall and closed the gap to Froome to 23sec.
Colombian Darwin Atapuma finished second, 20sec behind Barguil with Bardet winning the sprint for third against Froome and Uran. But with only Saturday’s time-trial left in which to make a significant difference to the standings, Froome looks set to claim a fourth Tour de France title. It was a thrilling battle on the final hours category climb at the end of the 179.5km Alpine 18th stage from Briancon to the Col d’Izoard.
Atapuma was part of an original 54-man breakaway that splintered over the two huge climbs of the day. He reeled in Kazakh Alexey Lutsenko halfway up the Izoard climb while the peloton led by Bardet’s AG2R team, at one point eight minutes back, started to close in. Barguil made his move with 6km to go but still had two minutes to make up on Atapuma, catching him with 1.4km left and leaving him behind inside the final kilometre.
