Navardauskas wins Tour’s stage 19
Vincenzo Nibali has seven-minute lead over closest rival as Ramunas Navardauskas wins 19th stage of Tour de France.
Lithuania’s Ramunas Navardauskas has won the 19th stage of the Tour de France, a 208.5km ride from Maubourguet as Italian Vincenzo Nibali retained the overall leader’s yellow jersey.
Garmin-Sharp rider Navardauskas attacked in a short climb close to the finish and never looked back as German John Degenkolb finished second.
Norway’s Alexander Kristoff finished third after the main bunch was split by a late crash.
All the riders from the main pack were credited with the same time as the incident happened with less than three kilometres left.
Nibali still leads France’s Thibaut Pinot by 7:10 and another Frenchman, Jean-Christophe Peraud, who crashed but said he was fine, by 7:23, ahead of Saturday’s decisive time trial.
Navardauskas powered away from the pack in the fourth-category climb of the Cote de Monbazillac 13 kilometres from the finish.
Pinot’s FDJ.fr team led the peloton in the descent and on the flat portion leading to the line, Cannondale and Tinkoff-Saxo chased the Garmin-Sharp rider who was 25 seconds ahead with five kilometres left.
With just under three kilometres remaining, Peter Sagan was involved in the crash as well as France’s Romain Bardet who is fifth in the overall standings and his AG2R-La Mondiale teammate Peraud.
Overall classifications (top-5):
1 Vincenzo Nibali 85:29:26″
2 Thibaut Pinot +7:10″
3 Jean-Christophe Peraud +7:23″
4 Alejandro Valverde +7:25″
5 Romain Bardet +9:27″