4 winners and 3 losers from a revealing Stage 17 of the Tour de France

We found out everything there is left to know about the 2018 Tour de France from Stage 17, except who will win the yellow jersey.

Stage 17 was always probably going to be the weirdest of the 2018 Tour de France, but what had to be seen was whether such a short stage would be impactful.

The day delivered. In under two and a half hours of racing, the yellow jersey now appears to be down to two men: Current yellow jersey Geraint Thomas, who accelerated to third place in Saint-Lary-Soulan, and Tom Dumoulin, who moved up to second place and is still within time trial range of winning the Tour.

You probably know who the biggest loser of the day is, and we’ll get there, but we absolutely must start with the winner.

Winner: Nairo Quintana

I’ll be honest, I left Quintana for dead in the first week after he lost time to crashes Stage 1. At that point, I figured that Movistar would be better off riding as if Mikel Landa was their leader, and though all of the team’s leaders have struggled since, nothing happened in the mean time to change my mind.

Wednesday changed my mind.

Quintana rode like a man possessed at the start of a vicious final climb — arguably the hardest climb of the Tour. With 14 kilometers left in the stage, Quintana had a minute and 20 seconds on the group of yellow jersey contenders, and he held them at bay all by himself, methodically picking off breakaway riders with no remorse.

Quintana didn’t slow down for one moment once he got stage leader Tanel Kangert in his sights, accelerating right past the Estonian with 8.5 kilometers to go, then shaking Rafal Majka off his wheel without looking back once.

It’s still too little, too late from him and Movistar for this Tour. But at least for one day, it was nice to see the 2013 form that made us all think that Quintana would be fighting Froome for yellow for years to come.

Loser: Chris Froome

And here we return to the yellow jersey competition, from which Froome has seemingly fallen.

With 2.4 kilometers left in the stage and the yellow jersey group down to eight riders, Primož Roglic upped the tempo at the front and the four-time yellow jersey winner was the first man off the back. And though Froome plugged his legs to regain some of the gap, he had no answer for Dumoulin’s attack with 1.6 kilometers to go, which his teammate Thomas deftly followed. Even with young superstar Egan Bernal pacing him, Froome was cooked.

Barring an incredible day on the Col du Tourmalet this Friday, Froome will not be winning a fifth yellow jersey this year. Emphasis on this year, because he had just won the Giro d’Italia in May, and there’s good reason no one has won a Giro-Tour double in 20 years: It’s really hard.

Froome will not join the five-time winners club in 2018, but nothing from this year’s Tour suggests that he shouldn’t be a favorite to win yet again next year.

Winner: Friendship

Now that this is officially Thomas’ Tour to lose, we can finally start believing him and Froome who have said throughout the race that they would ride for each other. The two have now been Sky teammates for eight years, and they are sickeningly good friends. We prayed for another chapter in the Tour’s long history of team mutiny, and yet now, even after Froome cracked, it still seems like the race is unfolding exactly to Sky’s plan.

With Froome losing nearly a minute to Thomas on the stage, he is free to ride as an ultradomestique for his buddy over the next two stages. As if Sky needed any more help, now there’s that. Good luck, Tom Dumoulin.

Winner: Colombia

As an example of how loaded the Sky squad is, Froome likely won’t be Thomas’ best helper over the coming days. Egan Bernal, at just 21 years old, yet has been Sky’s best lieutenant over the final climbs of the last few stages, driving the pace of the yellow jersey group and cracking such esteemed climbers as Romain Bardet. If Bernal hadn’t been so dedicated to helping Froome on Wednesday, he might have challenged Thomas to take third on the stage.

It perhaps shouldn’t be a surprise that he and Quintana had such brilliant days of racing. Both are leaders of a small Colombian renaissance in cycling, and their upbringings particularly shine when the altitude climbs above 2,000 meters, as it did Wednesday. If young Colombian sprinter Fernando Gaviria hadn’t missed the time cut on Stage 11, this truly would have been a Tour to remember for the nation. The 23-year-old won two stages before being forced to abandon.

We can expect to see Quintana, Bernal, and Gaviria highlighting the Tour de France for years to come.

Loser: Romain Bardet

Romain Bardet finally and truly cracked on the final climb, falling off the back of the yellow jersey group with a long line of drool hanging from his mouth with six kilometers to go.

As I wrote Tuesday, it’s getting late early for Bardet to ever win a Tour de France, which France hasn’t won since Bernard Hinault in 1985. Without a proper time trial, he will always need to rely on his superior climbing ability to gap his rivals, and Wednesday was now the second time during this year’s race when he didn’t have the legs for a final climb.

Winner: Julian Alaphilippe and the polka-dot jersey

Julian Alaphilippe is not only riding a masterful King of the Mountains campaign, he is making it look good. Alaphilippe is far from the best pure climber in the Tour, but he is eager, smart, and a brilliant bike handler. He has been untouchable on descents when he gets in a breakaway group, and has picked his peaks wisely to be able to muscle his way to KOM points.

The best part of Alaphilippe’s Tour are the camera shots of him in the polka-dot jersey. He often finds the camera back — smiling, waving, and somehow enjoying himself even when barreling headfirst into some of the toughest climbs in the world.

And when Alaphilippe doesn’t know the camera is on him, he is still doing things like giving support to Adam Yates, who slipped while in the lead on Stage 16’s descent, allowing Alaphilippe to win the stage.

In every way, Alaphilippe embodies the combativity and sportsmanship we hope to see every year before the Tour starts. He’s been my favorite thing about the 2018 Tour by far.

Loser: F1 starts

Well that was anticlimactic.