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Richard Carapaz won the 17th stage of the Tour de France.(Bild: AP/ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Richard Carapaz has won the 17th stage of the Tour de France. It is the Ecuadorian's first stage win, crossing the finish line 37 seconds ahead of Britain's Simon Yates. Overall leader Tadej Pogacar crossed the finish line seven and a half minutes behind, retaining his yellow jersey. 

Richard Carapaz has won the 17th stage of the 111th Tour de France. After the 177.8 kilometers between Saint-Paul-Trois-Chateaux and the winter sports resort of Superdevoluy, which were hilly towards the end, the Olympic champion from Ecuador won as a soloist ahead of Simon Yates from Great Britain and Enric Mas from Spain. Meanwhile, Tadej Pogacar slightly extended his overall lead, with the Slovenian also putting on a mini demonstration of power in the finish.

Pogacar attacked his rival Jonas Vingegaard just under five kilometers before the finish, but the Danish defending champion was initially able to parry the attack. The two-time Tour winner then sprinted again and arrived a few seconds earlier than Vingegaard. Both provided a foretaste of the tough mountain stages to come.

Pogacar further ahead
Exceptional rider Pogacar still has a comfortable lead of 3:11 minutes over Vingegaard. The Belgian time trial world champion Remco Evenepoel finished ahead of the other two favorites and made up some time. He is 5:09 minutes behind Pogacar in third place. Felix Gall mostly stayed in a group with the top riders and is still eleventh (+19:04 min.), only around half a minute behind the top ten.

For Carapaz it is the first Tour stage win of his career. The pro had only managed stage wins at the Giro d'Italia and the Spanish Vuelta. He even won the Giro in 2019. The climbing specialist should be particularly pleased about this, as the winner of the gold medal in Tokyo (2021) was not nominated by his national federation for the upcoming Games in Paris. Jhonatan Narvaez will take part instead.

The breakaways will be in demand again on Thursday. With five smaller climbs on the 18th stage between Gap and Barcelonnette, the professional cyclists will have to conquer 179.5 kilometers. Two tough Alpine stages await on Friday and Saturday. On Sunday, the Tour of France ends with an individual time trial in Nice.