Tour de France 2024 Stage 19

July 19, 2024 Short and sweet. Stage 19 is 144KM long with 4,400M of altitude gain. The riders must traverse three climbs, each going over 2000M in altitude with the Cime de la Bonette summiting at 2,800M. A break of 25 riders went after just 4.5KM of racing. EF-Education EasyPost were not content with the composition and were pulling hard in the peloton but the break was strong and committed. They managed to get the gap to 30 seconds at the foot of the Col de Vars at which point Richard Carapaz attacked. He managed to bridge up, making contact with 15.5KM to climb to the top, 117.5KM to go in the stage. The break completely disintegrated within the first 5KM of climbing. A group of 9 eventually formed including Matteo Jorgenson and Wilco Kelderman of Visma-Lease a Bike, Simon Yates of Jayco AlUla, Nicolas Prodhomme of Decathlon AG2R, Ilan Van Wilder of Soudal Quickstep, Jai Hindley of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe, Cristián Rodríguez of Arkéa-B&B Hotels, Oscar Onley of DSM-Firmenich and Carapaz. UAE started to control in the peloton but the gap grew to 3 minutes 15 seconds as Carapaz led the break over the Col de Vars. Next on the route was the Cime de la Bonette, a climb that will take more than hour to summit. The nine leaders started the climb with 80KM to go and an expanded lead of 4 minutes 30 seconds. Three were dropped on the way up but again Carapaz led over the top with Jorgenson, Kelderman, Yates, Hindley, and Rodríguez behind. With the mountains points, Carapaz jumped clear of Tadej Pogačar by 20 points in his bid to win the jersey out-right. The break hit the final climb of Isola 2000 with 16KM to climb and a gap to the peloton of 4 minutes. Rodríguez was dropped early, Hindley was next to go, 2.5KM into the climb. Jorgenson attacked the break with 13.4KM to go with no reaction. In the GC group, Adam Yates of UAE started riding early on Isola 2000. With 12KM to climb, there were only eight riders left in the group. Up front, Carapaz attacked Kelderman and Yates with 10.6KM to go. Kelderman was dropped while Yates kept his pace, eventually catching and dropping Carapaz with 6KM to go. Pogačar caught and passed Yates with 3KM to climb, only Jorgenson was in between Pogačar and the stage win. Jorgenson was caught with 2KM to go, leaving Pogačar free to fly to victory. Pogačar crossed the line with his fourth win this Tour, Jorgenson crossed the line next with Yates in third. Jonas Vingegaard of Visma-Lease a Bike and Remco Evenepoel of Soudal Quickstep stuck together up the climb. Vingegaard seemed to change tact and was marking Evenepoel to preserve his second overall. Vingegaard and Evenepoel came across the line together, 1 minute 42 seconds down on Pogačar. They now sit 5 minutes and 7 minutes down in GC respectively.