Christophe Laporte wins stage 19 to end home drought in Tour de France

Christophe Laporte won stage 19 of the Tour de France after holding off the pursuing peloton in the Boulevard Leon Gambetta in Cahors.

Laporte, a key Jumbo-Visma teammate to the race leader, Jonas Vingegaard, bridged across to the stage’s final breakaway group, containing Britain’s Fred Wright, to claim his team’s fifth stage win of the race.

In what was expected to be only the third genuine field sprint of the Tour, the roads to Cahors lent themselves to a speeding peloton. Hard as the breakaways tried to establish themselves, they were never able to establish a meaningful gap, until Wright, Jasper Stuyven and Alexis Gougeard slipped ahead with a little over 30km remaining.

But with three stages left for the home nation’s riders to redeem themselves after a winless Tour for the French so far, hopes were high that, with only the time trial and Champs Elysées sprint still to come, a French rider could take the stage.

After bridging to the leaders, Laporte, a strong time triallist and sprinter, accelerated clear of the trio with only 300 metres left to race. Hard though Wright tried, he was unable to prevent the 29-year-old French rider from taking the first Tour stage win of his career.