Classy Richard Carapaz finally takes first Tour de France stage win from breakaway on stage 17 as Pogacar, Vingegaard & Evenepoel continue to fight

Many have been calling for more breakaway opportunities at the 2024 Tour de France and on stage 17, those wishes were rewarded as Richard Carapaz took victory, completing his set of Grand Tour wins, ahead of Simon Yates and Enric Mas.

The fight for the breakaway on stage 17 was one of the most brutal of the whole Grand Tour so far. Under the blistering summer sun, things took over 60km to finally start breaking up. With 110km to go, UAE Team Emirates came to the front of the peloton however, leaving only a quartet of Tiesj Benoot, Bob Jungels, Romain Gregoire and Magnus Cort Nielsen up the road.

With just four men up the road however, a number of teams had missed out and as such, UAE Team Emirates' presence at the front didn't do much to calm things down. In fact, as the attacks returned, Pogacar was left a little isolated as he was forced to resort to chasing down moves himself with the peloton splitting into two groups momentarily.

Despite the relentlessly attacking riding at the front of the peloton, the four leaders still had 1:05 advantage at 65km to go. With the four leaders taking the major points on offer at the intermediate sprint, Biniam Girmay edged out Jasper Philipsen for 5th place, extending his advantage in the Green Jersey classification.

After the intermediate sprint, a massive group of more than 40 riders split from the rest of the peloton. Whilst there were no GC threats there, a number big names involved Wout van Aert, Christophe Laporte, Richard Carapaz, Marc Soler, Geraint Thomas, Matej Mohoric, Wout Poels, David Gaudu, Stephen Williams, Enric Mas, Romain Bardet, Kevin Vauquelin and Jonas Abrahamsen among others.

At 40km to go, the leading quartet were still 1:42 ahead of the chase group, with the Maillot Jaune and the rest of the GC hopefuls now just over four minutes behind the front of the race, perhaps meaning a breakaway stage was looking likely for the day. Once the first categorised climb of the day began though, the brutal start to the stage began to take it's toll on those who'd managed to get themselves up ahead, with numerous riders in the chase group quickly falling out the back as the rose began to rise.

Heading into the final 20km and the penultimate climb of the day, the leaders were about to have company from the counter attacking Guillaume Martin and Valentin Madouas, whilst the remainder of the chase group were still 50 seconds back on the leaders. The peloton meanwhile, were now completely out of the picture for the stage, over seven minutes down.

Once the climbing began though, the big name climbers of the chase started to make their own moves, including Grand Tour winners Simon Yates and Richard Carapaz. Yates quickly bridged across to the leaders and immediately zoomed past and into the lone lead of the stage although he was soon joined by the Olympic champion. With 1.8km of the climb to go, Carapaz attacked again, gaining a gap of 13 seconds from Yates by the summit, with Enric Mas third on the road at 35 seconds.

A little further down the climb, attacks were beginning in the peloton too with Giulio Ciccone the first of the top-10 to make a move, with Derek Gee and Felix Gall attempting to follow an ultimately nullifying the move. With no signs of riding defensively however, Tadej Pogacar was the next to attack with not Jonas Vingegaard but Remco Evenepoel leading the chase for the back wheel.

On the descent however, thanks in part to Vingegaard picking up teammate Christophe Laporte, both Evenepoel and Pogacar were reeled back in by the Team Visma | Lease a Bike leader.

There was no doubt about the stage winner however, as Richard Carapaz, who has already worn the Maillot Jaune this edition, finally managed to add a Tour de France stage win to his palmares, completing his set of Grand Tour victories in the process.

On the 3rd category climb to the line, Evenepoel attacked again and with Pogacar and Vingegaard watching each other, the Soudal - Quick-Step leader latched onto teammate Jan Hirt, dropped from the break and began to pull away, putting time into Vingegaard and potentially closing the gap to 2nd overall. In the end, Evenepoel managed to gain just over 10 seconds to Vingegaard