Victor Campenaerts (Lotto Dstny) won stage 18 of the Tour de France from Gap to Barcelonnette after another battle for the breakaway and another intense battle for the stage victory.
The Belgian rider got away with Michal Kwiatkowski (Ineos Grenadiers) and Tour debutant Mattéo Vercher (TotalEnergies) in the final 35km of the stage.
They worked well together to hold off the chasers and then sprinted for the stage victory. Kwiatkowski was forced to lead out the sprint and Campenaerts kicked hard to hit the front and win. Vercher was second, with Kwiatkowski third.
After becoming a father just a few weeks, Campenaerts was in tears as he savoured his first-ever Tour stage victory.
Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) and the other GC contenders let the break go clear early in the stage, preferring to save their energy for the final mountain stage of this year’s Tour de France that began on Friday.
Toms Skujiņš (Lidl-Trek) led home a chase group of five riders at 22 seconds to take fourth place, with Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) winning the sprint for ninth place at 37 seconds after again missing out on victory.
Pogačar and the peloton eventually finished 13:40 down on Campenaerts.
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The Belgian made a video call to his partner just a few seconds after crossing the finish line. He has held the Hour Record on the track and won other races but a Tour de France stage was missing from his palmares.
“As a real professional, you have to ride the Tour de France and finish the Tour de France. Winning a stage in the Tour de France is everybody’s dream. I’m not a neo-pro, I’ve been dreaming about this for a very long time,” an emotional Campenaerts said.
“After the Classics, I had a very difficult time. I had a verbal agreement with the team about extending the contract but I got ignored for a long time and it was very difficult.
“My girlfriend is incredible, she’s always there for me. We went nine weeks on an altitude camp, she was highly pregnant. She gave birth to our son at the bottom of the climb in Granada. She is the hero in this story, and I’m so grateful that she made this possible, that the team made it possible, that I had a super long altitude camp to prepare for this Tour de France.
“I was struggling to finish my training schedules but then I changed my mind. I still have a bright future in cycling, I became a father and it was like blue skies, only, blue skies and I started to feel very good on the bike.
“I came to this Tour de France with a super motivated team, we have a super good atmosphere in the team. And this is just the result of this atmosphere in the team. We’re gonna celebrate tonight,” he continued.
“Because of the birth of my son, I didn’t do any preparation race leading into the Tour de France but they had faith that I’d be in a good shape. I will be leaving the team, but I’m so happy that we can finish off with maybe the highlight of my career.”
“It’s a victory of experience, you had to be the smartest out there. I think I played it very smart,” he said.
“I slipped in the breakaway with only one bullet. I maybe played it a bit dirty by trying to show everybody that I was hurting a lot so I didn’t have to do too many pulls. I followed the moves. We had a great attack going in the final and we collaborated very well together, until the last kilometre.
“It’s indescribable. There are still three hard days to come but I’m looking forward so much to going home to my girlfriend and my son.”