Guillaume Boivin achieved one of his best results of the 2023 Tour de France with 24th place on stage 18, closely followed by Hugo Houle on Thursday.
After the mountains, cyclists found a slightly milder route between Moûtiers and Bourg-en-Bresse, which was excellent news for the sprinters. The two Quebecers tried to take their Israel Premier Tech teammate Corbin Strong as far as possible, but he had to settle for 13th place.
“[Nous sommes] I’m glad to have the Alps behind us. If a good group breaks away, that could be of interest to us. “We have to see if the sprinter teams are organized to control the race,” Boivin said ahead of the stage, according to Grande Boucle’s Twitter account.
Houle, meanwhile, rode in the top 50 for the fourth straight day, eventually finishing 35th. The runner from Sainte-Perpétue is 47th overall, 2 hours and 41 minutes away from the yellow jersey.
The gap between Tour leader Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) and his runner-up Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) remained the same. The two rivals finished 28th and 26th respectively in the same group.
With three days to go to the finish in Paris, Vingegaard, who will win his second Tour de France on Sunday barring an accident, maintains a lead of 7 minutes and 35 seconds in the general classification.
It was Denmark’s Kasper Asgreen (Soudal-Quick Step) who won the stage in the sprint. There were four cyclists participating in the breakaway towards the finish line. Previously, Asgreen’s teammates Julian Alaphilippe and Tom Declercq had done everything they could to disrupt the chase by constantly positioning themselves in the middle of the sprinter teams in the peloton.
The 19th stage connects Moirans-en-Montagne with Poligny on Friday.
–With information from Agence France-Presse