Astana’s Lopez 4th in Tour de France Stage 15
Lopez followed the late attack of the yellow jersey Primoz Roglic together with Tadej Pogacar and Richie Porte. In the end, the Astana rider finished 4th, 8 seconds behind Pogacar, who won the stage, and Roglic, who was second and 3 seconds behind Porte. In the same time, he gained some time on other rivals, after the stage moving up to the fourth position in the general classification.
«I am very happy with this stage, the first day in big mountains. I think it was a good one for me as I was able to stay with the best riders and also to follow their attack in the end. The team did a great job for me during the day. We had a good plan for this stage, we did not do any mistake, and everything went quite well from start to finish. In the end I still had Harold Tejada next to me at the final climb and he provided me a great support. But also all other guys were amazing today. The climb was a tough one, but I felt well and did all I could today. So, fourth place today, that’s not bad. Still a full third week ahead and we will do it day by day, working together as a team. Tomorrow is a rest day and I want to use it to rest a bit and to recover after these demanding two weeks of hard racing,» says Miguel Angel Lopez.
After start in Lyon eight riders went in a breakaway. This group could stay in front of the race on the first two climbs of the day, Montèe de la Selle de Fromentel (1st category, 11.5 km, 8.1%) and Col de la Biche (1st category, 6.9 km, 8.7%), but has been caught back with 13 km to go on the slopes of the final ascent Grand Colombier, the HC category climb (17.7 km, 7.1%).
Team Jumbo-Visma set the pace during the whole final climb, while Miguel Angel Lopez was always staying well in the yellow jersey group together with young Harold Tejada, who spent a phenomenal day in the mountains, supporting his leader until last six kilometers.
Finally, a group of 12 riders arrived at the last kilometer, where it was Primoz Roglic, who opened the uphill sprint and followed by Pogacar, Porte and Lopez.
After this stage and ahead of the second rest day at the Tour de France Primoz Roglic keeps the yellow jersey, having 40 seconds in Pogacar, 1.34 on Rigoberto Uran and 1.45 on Miguel Angel Lopez, fourth now in the overall.