Vincenzo knew that our best shot of winning the stage from Bollene north up the Rhône river to Valence was to make the day’s break and push the pace at the end to crack the sprinters’ teams. After a furious start on hilly, twisty roads, Vincenzo sprinted away with a group of four and pushed hard to establish a two-minute lead.
The peloton held them there over the two tough climbs on the course, while Vincenzo’s teammates stayed strong at the front of the pack–marking moves and making the front splits–as their rivals tried to push the pace to drop sprinters and launch across the gap.
The peloton came together on the descent down the Col de Tartaiguille, just as a storm rolled in. Then, it was a drag race to the finish.
The wet roads gave Albanese hope. He and his colleagues in the break drove into the rain, taking every roundabout on the limit to gain seconds. But the sprinters were determined and their teams closed the gap. Vincenzo had to relent with just over eight kilometers to go.
Once they got to the sprint zone inside the five-kilometers-to-go mark, our squad sat up to stay safe. They rolled into the finish and went straight into recovery mode to get ready to race into the Alps.
Tomorrow’s 18th stage will be one of the hardest days of racing at this year’s Tour de France. The course crosses the mythical Col du Glandon and Col de la Madeleine, before the summit finish up the Col de la Loze.
The forecast promises rain and cooler temperatures. That is Ben Healy weather.
Read our riders’ thoughts from the finish of Stage 17 of the Tour de France.
It was a great day, my first time in a breakaway at the Tour, so it was exciting. I knew it would be difficult to get to the finish because we were only four guys in front and the sprinters’ teams wanted to close but they struggled to catch us because we were going really strong in front. Maybe there will be one or two more chances for me at this Tour. I will definitely try again!
It was a bit of a disappointing start, actually. We wanted a bigger group to go, but the sprint teams really wanted to keep it together, and you could feel it. There was chaos at pretty much every point that there possibly could be on both of the climbs. We were there for it and had Alba up the road.
We had the left side of the bus on attack duty today. It went pretty quickly. We expected a bit more of a fight. It was a smallish group, which obviously suited the sprinters’ teams, and there were small roads at the start, which allowed them to block the road a bit.
Even with that group, we weren’t too upset, because Abrahamsen is so strong, and Albanese was having a good day. We knew they would go very, very far. It just depended on how tired the sprint teams got. They got a bit tired in the middle of the race when Ineos moved, but then it all settled down. We hoped that the rain coming would be in the break’s favor, which it was.
At the end, Alba was on the front when they came out of the roundabout when Abrahamsen went, which meant that it was hard for him to get right on the wheel. Otherwise, he probably would’ve been with him until the very, very end. I wouldn’t say it wouldn’t have been the same result, but it was a good day.
The guys did really well. They had everything covered behind.