Tour de France, Victor Campenaerts wins in Barcelonnette

Tour de France, Victor Campenaerts wins in Barcelonnette

Ineos Grenadiers’ Michal Kwiatkowski of Poland, world champion in 2014, Lotto Dtny’s Belgian Victor Campenaerts, winner of a stage at the Giro d’Italia in Gorizia in 2021, and TotalEnergies’ Frenchman Matteo Vercher, the main survivors of the day’s breakaway, played for success in the 18th stage of the Tour de France, the 179.5-kilometer Gap-Barcelonnette with five mountain grand prix but all in the third category.

Prevailing at the finish line of the resort in the Alpes departement of Haute Provence, after an attempt by Vercher in the last kilometer, was Campenaerts, who in a sprint beat in the order Vercher and the highly favored, at least in this sprint, Kwiatkowski. At 22 seconds the group of the first chasers, regulated in the sprint by Latvian Lidl-Trek’s Tom Skujins.

First win at the Grande Boucle in his third participation then for Campenaerts, 32, who also won the San Benedetto del Tronto time trial at the 2019 Tirreno-Adriatico in his career. The general classification’s top group, including yellow jersey Tadej Pogacar, è arrived with a delay of 13’40”.

Tomorrow begins the decisive three days of this edition of the Tour with the nineteenth stage, starting in Embrun and finishing uphill, after 144.6 kilometers, in Isola 2000, after climbing the Col de Vars, one of the historic peaks of the Grande Boucle, and the Cime de la Bonette, the roof of this edition with its 2802 meters of altitude after 22.9 kilometers of climbing. Vars and Bonette are Grand Prix de la Montagne hors categorie, Isola 2000 first category.