MONT VENTOUX, France (AP) — Valentin Paret-Peintre triumphed on Mont Ventoux to become the first home rider to win a stage at this year’s Tour de France, while Tadej Pogačar consolidated his overall lead Tuesday.
Paret-Peintre followed Ben Healy on a breakaway and then beat the Irish rider in a sprint for the line at the top of the famed barren mountain known as the “Beast of Provence.”
“A victory at the Tour is extraordinary, but to do it on the Mont Ventoux, that’s something completely different,” said Paret-Peintre, a climber and the first French winner on the mountain since Richard Virenque in 2002. “I can’t tell you what this win means for me. I’ll need some time for everything to sink in.”
Santiago Buitrago was third, 4 seconds behind, ahead of Ilan Van Wilder and fifth-placed Pogačar, who withstood repeated attacks from Jonas Vingegaard to cross the line 2 seconds before his main rival.
After the Tour’s second rest day Monday, Pogačar stretched his overall lead to 4 minutes, 15 seconds over Vingegaard. The Danish rider won the Tour in 2022 and 2023 but seems powerless to stop defending champion Pogačar from achieving his fourth win when the race finishes Sunday on the Champs-Élysées in Paris.
“I think we’ll race until Paris and we’ll see who will be the winner,” Pogačar said. “Today was a proper hard day after the rest day, also for me.”
Stage 16 took the riders 171.5 kilometers from Montpellier in the south of France on a long flat course until they reached the brutal climb up Ventoux.
During the 1967 Tour, English rider Tom Simpson died ascending the 1,910-meter-high mountain after he had taken a mixture of amphetamines and alcohol. Simpson had been unwell and the heat was likely another contributing factor. Doping checks were not common at the time.
Mathieu van der Poel, who had been third in the points classification, with pneumonia.
Wout van Aert, the last winner when the route went through Ventoux in 2021, attacked from the off, prompting responses from Jonathan Milan, Ivan Romeo and others.
Six were in the lead by the time they got to Bedoin at the bottom. Only 22 kilometers remained, but they were to get increasingly tough with 15.7 kilometers at an 8.8% incline from Saint-Esteve to the finish.
Healy, leading a group of chasers, overtook Julian Alaphilippe while Vingegaard made his initial move. Vingegaard attacked again, then again, but Pogačar stayed doggedly on his wheel. The gap was closing on Spanish rider Enric Mas in the lead.
Vingegaard got support when he caught up with Visma-Lease a Bike teammate Victor Campenaerts, but Healy was moving fast in front of them and took the lead from Mas with 3.7 kilometers to go. Paret-Peintre followed and was supported by Soudal–Quick-Step teammate Van Wilder to finish just ahead of Healy.
Vingegaard could not shake off Pogačar, who attacked with 2 kilometers to go to deal his rival another demoralizing blow.
“There were some points of course where I was suffering,” Pogačar said. “But I think today was just one climb, one effort, and it was more or less full gas from bottom to the finish line. But in the next days I think it will be just more and more tiring for the body.”
Wednesday’s stage
It’s the last chance for sprinters to shine on the relatively flat 160.4-kilometer route from Bollène to Valence, where a wide flat road should provide the stage for an exciting finish. Riders will need to watch out if the local winds pick up, however, adding an element of unpredictability to Stage 17.
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