Andre Greipel of Lotto Soudal has his third stage victory in the 102nd Tour De France after sprinting to a win on stage fifteen.
Stage fifteen with Chris Froome still safe in the leader’s jersey, was a 183km stage from Mende to Valance which featured four climbs and a sprint on a day where either the sprinters or the puncheurs could fancy their chances.
172 riders rolled out of Mende which was hosting the race for the fourth time and a seventeen man group including Peter Sagan battled it out on the category three côte de Badaroux with Serge Pauwels of MTN Qhubeka taking the two points after 9.5kms of racing.
Pauwels was now in a group of twenty seven riders made up of Lieuwe Westra (Astana), Alexis Vuillermoz (AG2R-La Mondiale), Thibaut Pinot (FDJ), Michael Rogers and Peter Sagan (Tinkoff), Winner Anacona and José Herrada (Movistar), Lars Bak and Thomas De Gendt (Lotto-Soudal), Simon Geschke (Giant), Purito Rodriguez (Katusha), Adam Yates (Orica), Michal Kwiatkowski, Matteo Trentin and Rigo Uran (Etixx), Cyril Gautier and Perrig Quémeneur (Europcar), Steven Kruijswijk (LottoNL), Bob Jungels (Trek), Kristjian Durasek and Ruben Plaza (Lampre), Andrew Talansky, Ryder Hesjedal and Dylan van Baarle (Cannondale), Nicolas Edet (Cofidis) and Paul Voss (Bora), that initially opened up a lead of 45 seconds but saw a Katusha led peloton reduce that until nine riders in Pinot, Rogers, Sagan, Bak, Geschke, Simon Yates, Kwiatkowski and Trentin and Hesjedal went off and took a forty seconds lead after 37 kilometres whilst Mark Cavendish was 1.50 behind the peloton further down the road.
After Cannondale-Garmin’s Sebastian Langeveld was forced to abandon the race due to sickness, the gap between the nine escapers and the peloton went out to 1.57.
Thibaut Pinot took the points on the col du Bez after 69kms and Michael Rogers of Tinkoff Saxo took the point on the category four Col de la Croix du Bauzon on the D19 road.
The day’s intermediate sprint came at Aubenas, where the crowds were out in force, and with a lead of two minutes, Peter Sagan the points leader rolled through to take the maximum points.
On to the final climb of the day, the category two Col de L'Escrinet which was a 7.9km long climb with average gradients of 5.8% and saw Ryder Hesjedal lead the riders over the top.
With the gruppetto some twelve minutes down, Matteo Trentin went off down the road on his own as the yellow jersey group of Chris Froome reduced the escapers lead to 1.13 with 45kms left.
The Etixx QuickStep rider was joined by Ryder Hesjedal with 37kms to go but seven kilometres later, the peloton brought them back before the packed turned onto the D86 by the banks of the Rhone.
As the temperatures got up to 36C/97F, Team Europcar, Lotto Soudal and Katusha were on the front of the peloton.
Through Soyons and Team Sky moved Chris Froome towards the front before BMC took over as the race went into the Drome Department and the town of Valance which was hosting the Tour De France for the second time.
Zdenek Stybar attacked with 3.3kms to go as speed went up to 55kmh before being caught with 1.1kms left. Katusha and Cofidis moved riders up as did MTN Qhubeka and on the final straight it was a battle between Andre Greipel and John Degenkolb and it was Greipel who won ahead of Degenkolb, Kristoff and Peter Sagan, who has now finished ten times in the top five in this race in 3.56.35, followed by Boasson Hagen, Navardauskas, Laporte, Matthews, Cimolai and Vachson.
Andre Greipel said:“The key factor was suffering from kilometre zero until the end but the team supported me and kept me out of the wind and they tried to keep me in the front group which worked quite well, even when it was hard to stay in the bunch today.
“But we made it perfect to keep me in the sprint and for the last 250m I went for the line and I am really proud of my team and myself.“
Chris Froome, who has been backed by ASO Chief Christophe Prudhomme after his attack on sections of the French press, maintains his 3.10 lead over Nairo Quintana in the race going into stage sixteen on Monday and wears a yellow jersey for the 24th time.
Source: DSG
