2015 Tour de France Stage 17 Results & Recap
Stage 17 of the 2015 Tour de France is in the books. The final results and standings are below, followed by our recap of how the race unfolded.
Race Recap
Geschke claims first Grand Tour stage win at Pra-Loup
Just like in the Pyrenees last week, the Tour de France entered the Alps with a bang and Simon Geschke (Giant-Alpecin) took the biggest win of his career with a solo escape to Pra Loup.
The German attacked from a large but uncoordinated breakaway just before the foot of the category 1 Col d’Allos, before holding his lead down the mountain and up the short final climb to Pra Loup. Andrew Talansky (Cannondale-Garmin) gave chase but it was ultimately in vain, while Rigoberto Urán came home third.
“It took me two or three minutes to figure out what I had done," Geschke said. "It was important going into the break and then we had to figure out what to do after that. It was a very good group to be in, a lot of guys were hanging on. I had to try something. I went into a break on the long climb and I had to take my chances to win. It was beautiful. When I had so much of an advantage, I knew there was a chance. It was incredible.
“This is my third victory as a professional, to be at the Tour is… I was waiting for 15 years for this moment.”
There was plenty of action in the yellow jersey group and while Chris Froome defended his lead over Nairo Quintana, third-placed Tejay van Garderen abandoned the race early on through illness and Alberto Contador lost over two minutes after crashing on the descent of Allos, and dropped to fifth overall behind Geraint Thomas (Sky).
Pra Loup is symbolic for being the scene of the downfall of the great Eddy Merckx. In the 1975 Tour, the five-time Tour de France winner was in yellow and in the lead on the descent of the Col d’Allos but was overhauled on the final climb to Pra Loup by Bernard Thévenet, who took yellow and went onto to win the race. Merckx wouldn’t wear yellow or win a Grand Tour again and Thévenet wrote himself into cycling folklore as the Tombeur de Merckx – the man who brought Merckx down.
The yellow jersey didn’t change hands today but one man was brought down nonetheless and that was Tejay van Garderen, who had started the stage third on GC and harbouring podium ambitions for Paris. In an aggressive start to the race he was dropped on the first climb of the day, the category 3 Col des Lèques, suffering with illness. While he did regain contact, the pace picked up again on the Col de la Colle Saint-Michel, the third climb of the day, and soon the BMC team car ground to a halt and van Garderen unclipped, climbed off, and stooped with head down and the arm of his DS around his shoulder.
Contador might still be in the race but his general classification ambitions were dealt an equally fatal blow. The Spaniard, part of a select group than included Froome, Quintana, Nibali, and Valverde, crashed on the descent of the Col d’Allos and finished 2:17 down on Froome. He is now 6:40 back on GC and his already faint hopes of pulling off the Giro d’Italia-Tour de France double have all but disappeared from sight.
Mathias Frank (IAM), who was in the day’s breakaway and was one of the riders to set off in pursuit of Geschke, finished fifth on the stage and jumped from 13th to eighth for his efforts. Talansky, for his part, took a step towards getting his Tour back on track by moving from 17th to 12th.
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