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German Lennard Kamna won stage 16 of the Tour de France after a break in Villard-de-Lans, where Irishman Nicolas Roche finished eighth. Roche’s compatriot Sam Bennett kept his green jersey, while Primoz Roglic remains the overall leader.
Kamna sped away from Richard Carapaz at the top of the penultimate climb of the 164km stage from La Tour-du-Pin to claim the first Grand Tour victory of his career.
The main group of contenders, happy to allow a 23-person getaway to have fun ahead, arrived more than 17 minutes later, with Roglic and second-placed Tadej Pogacar united to maintain the 40-second gap between them.
There were no changes at the top of the general classification, with Rigoberto Uran third ahead of his compatriot Miguel Ángel López in fourth and Britain’s Adam Yates in fifth, and Wednesday’s stage from Grenoble to Col de la Loze is expected to be ahead. Meribel is more decisive. .
Last year’s winner Egan Bernal, who had dropped out of the race when he pulled away at the Grand Colombier on Sunday, lost a beat again and returned home in the group with the sprinters and other laggards down the mountain, at least managing to smile. and joke. Like he did.
Instead, Ineos had pinned their hopes on a stage win, with Andrey Amador and Pavel Sivakov joining Carapaz in a large group allowed the way.
That group was decisively broken on the ascent of the Montee de Saint-Nizier-du-Moucherotte just over 20 km from the line, with Carapaz attacking first but Kamna able to continue and then accelerate up the valley road to the ramp end towards the line.
Kamna, 24, clinched a stage win at the Criterium du Dauphine last month before taking second place to Dani Martinez on stage 13 of the Tour on Friday.
“I feel great,” said Kamna. “It’s an absolutely amazing day for me now. It was a fight from the beginning and I knew I had to get to the end alone. When I saw Carapaz pick up speed I thought, ‘Now is the time to go’ and I just went all the way until the end.
“It’s a great, great, great relief for the team and for me. I can hardly imagine it. The step I took this year is huge and I am very happy to win today.”
Roche, whose father Stephen took the yellow jersey at Villard-de-Lans in 1987, was also at halftime and returned home in eighth place on stage.
“You start the stage with the dream of winning another stage in the Tour de France, but you can’t be too greedy either, you are competing against some of the best riders on the planet,” said the 36-year-old.
“Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but today Lenny showed that he was the strongest in climbing. We have seen that he is already strong since the beginning of the Tour, so he is a well deserved winner.”
Neither Bennett nor Peter Sagan made it into the early attacks, leaving Bennett 45 points ahead of the former world champion in the battle for the green, but Matteo Trentin won the intermediate sprint to score 20 points and close his own deficit with Bennett at 60..
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