Tough Climbs in Tour de France Stage 16

Tough Climbs in Tour de France Stage 16

Tough Climbs in Tour de France Stage 16

📅23 July 2014, 11:00

The Australian Michael Rogers has won stage 16 of the Tour de France, the longest stage of this year’s race. The 34 year old who rides for Tinkoff-Saxo made his break on the descent with three kilometres left of the Cacassonne to Bagneres-de-Luchon route.

This was Rogers’ first stage victory of the Tour and comes after he won two stages of the Giro d’Italia earlier in the year. Europcar’s Thomas Veockler came in second just 9 seconds behind Rogers while Team Sky’s Vasil Kiriyienka came third.

The yellow jersey holder, Vincenzo Nilabli and Alejandro Valverde who is second overall, finished the stage about nine minutes behind the leaders and kept the top two spots in the general classification.

It wasn’t such a successful day for Frenchman Romain Bardet and American Tejay van Garderen who both lost significant ground and their podium hopes suffered a considerable blow. Bardet was unable to sustain the pace in the climb and lost over 1 minute 40 seconds. France’s Thibaut Pinot has moved up to third place and knocked compatriot Bardet down into fourth. Garderen also struggled to keep up, lost more than three minutes and has fallen from fifth to sixth overall.

In other news World Champion Rui Costa has withdrawn from the race suffering from pneumonia. Prior to withdrawing he had been in thirteenth place, about 13 minutes behind Nibali.

Early in the race a group of 21 riders broke away and stuck together for much of the race. However, they began to fall apart during the 12km Port de Bales climb. This stage was just an appetiser for the Pyrenees; the group faces more uphill finishes on both Wednesday and Thursday.