Friday’s stage 19 began in Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne and ended on La Toussuire at 138 km with four climbs featured on the profile. The high pace at the beginning straight onto the climb made for a long day of racing for much of the peloton.

The first climb of the category 1 Col du Chaussy was immediately after the start and Team Katusha’s Joaquim Rodriguez, supported by Alberto Losada and Giampaolo Caruso put himself into position to gather points for the climbing competition. “Purito” took the maximum points  on the Col du Chaussy, but later in the stage, closer to the top of the Col de la Croix de Fer, the team leader dropped away and had to settle for third place behind new best climber Romain Bardet (AR2R La Mondiale).

“We knew today is one of the last stages when we could fight for the points in the mountain classification. So, Joaquim attacked from the start, he was in the breakaway and on the first climb. Later, it was hard for him to follow the leaders on the HC-category climb. So, he lost the jersey. Of course, we still have one more stage tomorrow with total 75 points in the game, but it will be very difficult to get it. This is Tour de France and everything could happen, you never know. All I can say, we will not give up and will do our best in this race until the end,” said head sports director José Azevedo to the Katusha website.

Saturday’s stage 20 is always a fan-favorite – the climb to l’Alpe d’Huez. At 111 km the stage begins in Modane and ends with the 21 hair pin turns on the l’Alpe d’Huez.