CAHORS (Reuters) - Frenchman Christophe Laporte ended a lengthy home drought at the Tour de France, claiming the 19th stage with a perfectly timed effort on Friday to give the local fans something to celebrate for the first time in more than a year.
Laporte, a domestique within the mighty Jumbo-Visma team of yellow jersey holder Jonas Vingegaard and points classification leader Wout van Aert, bridged a small gap with a leading trio in a nail-biting finale before moving clear 300 metres from the line.
Belgian Jasper Philipsen took second place and Italy’s Alberto Dainese finished third, both one second behind Laporte.
Dane Vingegaard was on the wrong side of a late split but the race jury gave the chasing bunch the same time as Philipsen and Dainese, although they crossed the line five seconds off the pace.
Vingegaard still holds a comfortable lead of 3:26 going into Saturday’s final time trial, a 40.7-km effort between Lacapelle-Marival and Rocamadour.
Laporte, a decent sprinter who had not had an opportunity for a stage victorythis year, was given the green light by his sporting directors to go for it on Friday and he duly delivered, after French riders had gone 38 stages without a Tour win.
They had not won a stage since world champion Julian Alaphilippe, who is not in this year’s race as he recovers from injury, prevailed on the opening day last year.
“A lot of French people had been waiting for this win and I’m happy I gave it to them,” said Laporte, who joined Jumbo-Visma this year after seven seasons at Cofidis, a team without a Tour stage win since 2008.
“Going to Jumbo is 100 percent why I won. In the last two months I spent six weeks in altitude, one week on the Dauphine and a week at home with my family only.