The 24-year-old claimed his maiden Tour de France stage victory to become the first French winner of this year’s race
Valentin Paret-Peintre secured the biggest win of his career and a first stage win for the home nation of this year's Tour de France with a thrilling sprint atop Mont Ventoux.
The 24-year-old edged out breakaway companion Ben Healy in a dramatic two-up sprint for the line, after a slimmed-down group of four came into the final kilometre with the yellow jersey of Tadej Pogacar and rival Jonas Vingegaard breathing down their necks.
Pogacar dealt with every attack attempted by Vingegaard and even put a couple of seconds into him at the finish to add two seconds to his lead, and now sits 4:15 clear in yellow, but stage 16 went to the breakaway at the summit of this most feared of Tour climbs.
Healy, who spent two days in yellow last week, was looking to add to his stage six win as he put in another outstanding attacking ride, but Paret-Peintre would not be denied as he came around the Irishman at the summit of the Giant of Provence.
Healy had done the bulk of the work to reel in an attack from Enric Mas and was then the first to launch his move out of a group of four inside the last few hundred metres.
But the effort told as Paret-Peintre, who had been able to latch onto team-mate and fellow breakaway rider Ilan Van Wilder in the finale, had the kick to get up the final ramp first.
Is is a fourth win of this Tour for Soudal-QuickStep, who lost leader Remco Evenepoel last week.
“How I won that stage is hard to say, I was thinking 'maybe I can win today, maybe I'm the best climber in this breakaway'," Paret-Peintre said.
“I asked my team-mates to make a good pace at the bottom and I tried so many times to drop Healy but he was very strong and at the end, I was just waiting for the sprint and then I won.
“These last few days we went through a little storm, I guess, and now the sun shines again,” he said, in reference to Evenepoel’s withdrawal. “It’s really amazing for me and for the team to win another stage, a fourth stage in this Tour, then tomorrow it’s a sprint we hope, so we can maybe win again [with sprinter Tim Merlier].”
Healy and Paret-Peintre were the final two survivors of a 35-strong breakaway on the 171.5km stage from Montpellier to Ventoux, the first finish here since the chaotic scenes in 2016 when Chris Froome was left running up the mountain after breaking his bike in a crash.
There was not quite that level of drama in the general classification fight this time but it was not for lack of trying on the part of Vingegaard and Visma-Lease a Bike, who had riders up the road in the break and tried to use them to set up the Dane to take time back on Pogacar.
Vingegaard launched his first attack after a big pull from Sepp Kuss, catching Tiesj Benoot before trying again, then taking a turn from Victor Campenaerts before a third dig.
The tactics were excellent, but Pogacar was equal to them all and then put in his own attack going into the final hairpin.
To add to Vingegaard's disappointment, the Dane collided with a photographer after the finish line and hit the deck.
“I went down,” Vingegaard said. “People in the finish area should use their eyes a bit more.
“I was feeling very good today so I'm happy with the feeling, happy with the attacks. Of course we didn't gain any time today but I take a lot of motivation.”
Scottish 22-year-old Oscar Onley finished 14th on the stage but lost 36 seconds to third-placed Florian Lipowitz, leaving the fourth-placed Scot now two minutes off the podium places.
Lipowitz’s Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe teammate Primoz Roglic, a five-time Grand Tour winner, continued his resurgence throughout this Tour to move within 38 seconds of Onley in fifth.
Additional reporting by PA
Category: General Sports
