Results? Stage 19 of the 2019 Tour de France was cut short due to adverse weather conditions and a mudslide that blocked part of the course. The yellow jersey was awarded to Egan Bernal (Team Ineos), who was the ‘leader on the road’ at the Col d’Iseran.
Surely, this one will go down with a great deal of controversy. While Julian Alaphilippe did cross the summit more than two minutes behind Bernal, he is known to be a top descender and likely could have defended his lead on the 30km descent into Tignes. Typically when stages are cancelled due to weather conditions, no winner is awarded and the results from the previous day are carried forward.
What I’m calling the provisional results are below. Indeed, the official TdF website is still not showing results as I type this. I would not be surprised to see this change.
Before the stoppage, the day started with no indication of the upcoming hailstorm.
Vincenzo Nibali, with Dan Martin, Pello Bilbao and Jesus Herrada went clear early in the stage with Nils Politt, Joey Rosskopf and Rein Taaramäe on the chase. The leaders never really gained a serious advantage over the yellow jersey group before being caught at km 35.
Meanwhile, the race was shocked by the withdrawl of Frenchman Thibaut Pinot. The Groupama-FDJ rider was the hope of the French nation for an overall win this year, but he was in pain from a muscular lesion in his leg. Groupama-FDJ later tweeted:
“Thibaut suffers from a muscular lesion on his left thigh. Yesterday, he finished stage 18 with a sharp pain and had troubles walking in the evening. His condition didn’t improve today, he just withdrew from the #TDF2019.”
— Équipe Cycliste Groupama-FDJ (@GroupamaFDJ) July 26, 2019
As Pinot withdrew, a group of 26 riders went clear: Dylan van Baarle (Ineos), Patrick Konrad (Bora-Hasngrohe), Tony Gallopin (AG2R-La Mondiale), Vincenzo Nibali and Damiano Caruso (Bahrain-Merida), Sébastien Reichenbach (Groupama-FDJ), Alejandro Valverde, Marc Soler and Andrey Amador (Movistar), Pello Bilbao, Gorka Izagirre, Magnus Cort and Alexey Lutsenko (Astana), Laurens De Plus (Jumbo-Visma), Rigoberto Uran, Alberto Bettiol and Michael Woods (EF Education First), Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott), Dan Martin and Fabio Aru (UAE Team Emirates), Giulio Ciccone (Trek-Segafredo), Jesus Herrada (Cofidis), Guillaume Martin (Wanty-Groupe Gobert), Roman Kreuziger (Dimension Data), Warren Barguil and Elie Gesbert (Arkéa-Samsic). The yellow jersey group was 1 minute behind at km 42.
The leading group continued to shake out riders, with Bauke Mollema, Thomas De Gendt, Roman Kreuziger, Elie Gesbert and Michael Matthews being dropped.
With 65km to go, the lead increased to 1’45” for the remaining group of 21 riders.
Alexey Lutsenko won the intermediate sprint at Bessans ahead of Gallopin, Barguil, Nibali and Amador.
Uran, Valverde, Barguil, G. Martin, Reichenbach, Lutsenko, De Plus, Woods, Ciccone, Nibali, Caruso, S. Yates, Amador, Cort formed the 14-man leading group with 9 km left until the summit of Iseran.
With 6.5km to the summit, just Nibali, De Plus, Barguil and Uran were at the front, then it was just Barguil at the lead. Bernal bridged up from the yellow jersey group with Simon Yates and Rigoberto Uran in tow.
Alaphilippe was showing signs of cracking, trailing50” behind the Bernal group with 3km to the summit and quickly dropping to a 1’20” gap soon after.
Bernal was the first to cross the summit and rode right into the virtual lead. Bernal and Yates began to make their way down to the finish when the stage was called.
The riders were stopped in a tunnel in Val d’Isère to be protected from the bad weather conditions before proceeding to Tignes where they’ll stay tonight.
Stage 19 PROVISIONAL Results:
- Egan Bernal
- Simon Yates, at 5’’
- Warren Barguil, at 41’’
- Laurens De Plus, at 50’’
- Steven Kruijswijk s.t.
- Geraint Thomas s.t
- Emanuel Buchmann s,t
- Vincenzo Nibali s.t
- Richie Porte at 1’18’’
- Gregor Mühlberger s.t.
- Wout Poels at 1’50’’
- Damiano Caruso s.t.
- Alejandro Valverde s.t
- Julian Alaphilippe at 2’07’’
- Rigoberto Uran at 2’30’’
PROVISIONAL General Classification After Stage 19:
- Egan Bernal
- Julian Alaphilippe, at 45’’
- Geraint Thomas, at 1’3’’
- Steven Kruijswijk, at 1’15’’
- Emanuel Buchmann, at 1’42’’
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