The Slovenian Matej Mohoric, from the Bahrain Victorious club, was left with the victory of the nineteenth stage of the Tour de France 2023, after a dramatic close in the sprint with the Danish Kasper Asgreen, with whom he reached the finish line side by side, while Ben O’Connor finished third.
The gap towards the closing of the contest is getting shorter. This Friday, a new day was held in which the trio of leaders separated from a group of 37 cyclists who broke up on the last climb, about 30 kilometers from the end of the stage, which consisted of 173 km from Moirans-en-Montagne to Poligny.
It was a round characterized by a relentless attack at an average speed of 49.1 km/h over undulating terrain, which was the fastest in the current competition and the fifth fastest ever, but after all that effort came down to a bicycle launch on the line.
O’Connor (AG2R Citroën Team) launched his maiden sprint with 400 meters to go but knew it was a doomed move against two faster men. Asgreen (Soudal Quick-Step) was first to go around, but Mohoric timed him perfectly to take the one-tire-width win.
There was no change at the top of the general classification, with race leader Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) finishing safely inside the main field almost 14 minutes down. Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) continues as escort.
Now the Danish cyclist only needs to survive Saturday’s mountain stage at Le Markstein, which will be 133.5km long, before he can start the celebrations en route to Paris.
For the Latin American representation, the Colombian Egan Bernal finished as the most outstanding of the day, starting from his 47th position. With this place, the man from INEOS Grenadiers is 37th in the general table, just three places below Harold Tejada (Astana-Qazaqstan), who finished the day 111th. Rigoberto Urán (EF Education-EasyPost) closed 103rd and is 74th in the ranking.
Source: Agencias de Noticias