Italian sprinter Milan powers to 2nd stage win at Tour de France, Pogačar maintains lead

VALENCE, France (AP) — Sprint specialist Jonathan Milan pounced at the finish to win the 17th stage of the Tour de France after a crash in the last kilometer derailed rivals’ hopes on Wednesday.

Italian rider Milan, the green jersey holder, consolidated his lead in the points classification with an explosive finish to get his wheel just over the line ahead of Jordi Meeus, Tobias Lund Andresen, Arnaud De Lie, Davide Ballerini and others in a rain-soaked sprint finale.

It’s Milan’s second stage win of the Tour after his victory in similar fashion in Laval on Saturday.

But it was arguably more dramatic with rival sprinter Tim Merlier and others involved in a crash under the “flamme rouge” — the triangular red banner over the road signaling the final kilometer.

“The last 25 kilometers were really, really, fast,” said Merlier, who finished 25th, more than a minute behind. “I think I did a mistake. I took one roundabout on the wrong side and I lost a lot of positions. And then I knew I needed to move up. The moment I wanted to move up, I crashed.”

Milan was in trouble earlier in the stage when the peloton split into two groups, finding himself in the second one. He had Lidl-Trek teammates Quinn Simmons and Jasper Stuyven to thank for dropping back to help.

“I didn’t survive alone, I survived with the help of my teammates and I have to appreciate this. Without them, I would still be on one of the climbs, I wouldn’t be here,” said Milan, who clocked 71.1 km/h and is the first Italian to win two stages in the same Tour since Vincenzo Nibali in 2014.

There was no change atop the overall standings with three-time Tour champion Tadej Pogačar maintaining his lead of 4 minutes, 15 seconds over main rival Jonas Vingegaard.

Milan stretched his lead in the points standings to 312, with Pogačar next on 240.

Ottawa’s Michael Woods finished 139th in Wednesday’s stage and dropped two spots to 51st overall, two hours seven minutes 44 seconds behind Pogačar.

Guillaume Boivin of Longueuil, Que., Woods’s Israel-Premier Tech teammate, was 126th on Wednesday and moved up two spots to 152nd overall, 4:05:10 off the pace.

There were attacks from the start Wednesday with Jonas Abrahamsen, Wout van Aert and others all agitating to get away on the largely flat 160.4-kilometer route from Bollène.

Four – Abrahamsen, Vincenzo Albanese, Quentin Pacher and Mathieu Burgaudeau – managed to escape and led for most of the stage.

Abrahamsen, who won Stage 11 after Pogačar crashed near the finish last week, went on his own with 11.5 kilometers to go,

But the gap was getting smaller and smaller as Tim Wellens drove the bunch, followed by UAE Team Emirates-XRG teammates Pavel Sivakov and Pogačar.

Abrahamsen was swallowed up by the bunch inside the 5-kilometer sprint finish. He dropped back and received an encouraging pat on the back from a teammate.

Thursday’s stage

The fun’s over for the sprinters as the Tour heads to the Alps with Stage 18 taking the riders 171.1 kilometers from Vif to a mountain-top finish on the 2,304-meter Col de la Loze above Courchevel. It’s arguably the toughest stage of the Tour with 5,500 meters of vertical gain including the 1,914-meter Col du Glandon. Then there’s a 19.2-kilometer climb at 7.9% to the Col de la Madeleine, where the riders will reach 2,000 meters for the first time. It won’t be the last time on Thursday, which could provide another opportunity for Vingegaard to test Pogačar.

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