Carapaz won stage 17 of the Tour de France alone

Richard Carapaz won stage 17 of the Tour de France on Wednesday, giving Ecuador its first victory in the history of the race.

Carapaz arrived as the first Ecuadorian to have climbed onto the podium of the Tour de France. He did so in 2021. In 2024, he added two other major challenges in that race: wearing the yellow leader’s jersey and winning a stage.

He did it in Superdévoluy, on the Alpine slopes, a profile that bore his name, mid-mountain, at the end of an escape that he knew how to resolve with rage, strength and a lot of intelligence.

He thus became the 110th rider of all time to win all three Grand Tours and put in a good performance in a race in which he soon realised he would not be able to fight for the overall.

A fall at the Tour de Suisse and a subsequent infection abruptly interrupted his preparation and he arrived in Florence far from the necessary point to fight in such a competitive race.

Tried

“We tried, but we quickly realised that it wasn’t possible. So we focused on other objectives. It was important for the team to win a stage. On the way we found the yellow jersey and that gave us a lot of morale,” he said.

He put it on following the third stage, in Turin, precisely the city where he wore pink for the first time in the Giro d’Italia.

That day he added his name to a short list of riders who have led the three Grand Tours, which includes only 25 names.

“It was a very special day. Just like it was three years ago to get on the podium, but I did it without winning a stage and I wanted to make my debut. That’s why it’s something very special. I don’t downplay any of the three things, but winning here is very complicated,” said the Ecuadorian.

Carapaz had tried it on several occasions, always on the offensive, true to his personality, but victory was very expensive in such a difficult race in which the favourites for the general classification, spurred on by the ambitious Pogacar, had aborted all the breakaways.

Ciudad

In Turin he climbed onto the podium to wear the yellow jersey and in Plateau de Beille to receive the prize for the combativeness that demonstrated his race, although then his effort in the difficult Pyrenean pass was buried by the push of the Slovenian.

At Superdévoluy, his smile was all over, as he returned to the podium to lift the winner’s prize, the first South American to win the Tour in four years, following Colombian Miguel Ángel López did so at the Col de la Loze.

Accustomed to fighting for higher goals, the winner of the 2019 Giro, who also has podiums in the three major races (he was second in the 2020 Vuelta), knew how to recycle himself to achieve other goals in a Tour in which the general classification is held by three vintage cyclists.

The day he dressed in yellow, he said he would fight to “be the best of the earthlings” and, little by little, he set his sights on achieving other goals.

“That forces you to wait for your moment, but we were clear that in the third week we might make a difference. And we had this stage clearly marked,” he said.

“I told the director on the bus that it was a profile that suited me well. And the team worked hard, they protected me well from the wind. I think we raced very intelligently,” he said.

It was not easy to form the breakaway. The Tour is full of goals and ambitions to achieve them. “It was a very Tour day, very crazy, with everyone wanting to get into the breakaway,” he said. Carapaz struggled to get into the breakaway and then to get out of it in search of the victory he so longed for.

More words

“When I saw Simon Yetes’ attack on the penultimate climb I told myself that he was the right one. He might have helped me open a gap and I think that was decisive,” he said.

“There is a lot of competition in the Tour and that makes it special. We have been trying since the morning. For us this victory is very important, because we have shown that we can compete with teams that have twice our budget,” he said.

The Ecuadorian continues to leave his mark
Carapaz has managed to get his name in one edition of the Tour. The Ecuadorian shows that he is not a banal cyclist, who always wants to leave his mark on the races he participates in.

His participation is now of high quality and helps him forget one of the disappointments of the season, that of not having been selected by his country to defend the Olympic gold at the Paris Games.

“It’s something I’ve already put aside. The Federation made its decision, with its criteria, which were not based on performance. But I show that I can give my best version, not everyone can win here. But I want to put the Games aside. There are still goals ahead to represent Ecuador,” he said.

Turin / EFE