The climbers of Intermarché-Circus-Wanty made the jersey of the Walloon team shine in the seventeenth stage of the Tour de France, considered as the queen stage of this edition.
The peloton had to climb the col des Saisies, followed by the Cormet de Roselend, the col de Longefroy and in eventually the Col de la Loze, with its 2300 meter the highest point of this year’s edition.
Rui Costa, who was already in the breakaway in the fifteenth stage, returned on the attack by joining the leading group of around twenty riders on the Cormet de Roselend.
The Portuguese rider rode in the lead of the race until the final difficulty, with Georg Zimmermann performing really well in the yellow jersey group behind. He accompanied the best climbers until the final kilometers of the last climb.
After 165 kilometer, Zimmermann reached Courchevel in seventeenth position. Adrien Petit crossed the line within the time limits, just like his teammates, and will be at the start of the next stage which is more suitable for sprinters.
“For this Tour de France, I had the intention to follow the favourites as long as possible in one of the mountain stages. Today I felt good from start to finish. The final climb Col de la Loze was like hell. I knew the climb from the Tour de l’Avenir in 2019, however, I was surprised from its brutality today. It was impossible to find a rhythm because of the steep slopes. Also the high altitude contributed to the degree of difficulty of this queen stage. I managed to follow the best climbers in the Tour, until we were only seven riders left in the yellow jersey group. I even saw Tadej Pogacar dropping before me. I’m very proud of my performance. We are getting closer to Paris, I want to go all out in every stage hoping that we can finish the Tour with a stage win.”
