Highlights - Stage 18 - Tour de France 2017by tourdefrance_en
The battle for the yellow jersey in the 2017 Tour de France came to a head on the slopes of the Col d’Izoard today, and Team Sky’s Chris Froome emerged with his yellow jersey intact on a stage won by Frenchman Warren Barguil.
Froome finished alongside his two closest rivals – AG2R’s Romain Bardet and Cannondale-Drapac’s Rigoberto Uran – to preserve his narrow advantage to the pair overall.
However, Froome is only likely to extend his advantage in Saturday’s time-trial in Marseille – a stage he’ll be looking to win to rubber-stamp his authority on the race.
Barguil underlined his own dominance of this year’s king of the mountains competition by going clear of the yellow jersey group on the Izoard and take a solo win at the summit – the first time the 2360m peak has hosted a Tour stage finish.
Second place on the day went to Darwin Atapuma of UAE Team Emirates, who was the only survivor of a massive 54-man breakaway that had spent most of the stage clear of the main field.
Bardet’s AG2R team rode strongly at the front to bring the gap down and Bardet did his best to distance the yellow jersey once they’d done their job, but Froome proved equal to the challenge and now looks all but certain to win his fourth Tour de France in Paris on Sunday.