20 riders in the lead
169 riders started stage 19 at Embrun. There were a lot of skirmishes with Belgian cyclist apparently super motivated on their national day until 20 riders managed to go clear at km 25: Jan Bakelants (AG2R-La Mondiale), Daniele Bennati (Movistar), Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo), Ben Swift (UAE), Rudy Molard (FDJ), Michael Albasini and Jens Keukeleire (Orica), Edvald Boasson Hagen (Dimension Data), Gianluca Brambilla (Quick Step), Robert Kiserlovski (Katusha), Thomas De Gendt and Tony Gallopin (Lotto-Soudal), Nikias Arndt (Sunweb), Julien Simon (Cofidis), Lilian Calmejane, Sylvain Chavanel and Romain Sicard (Direct Energie), Elie Gesbert, Romain Hardy and Pierre-Luc Périchon (Fortuneo-Oscaro). A time gap of 8 minutes was recorded at km 88. Teams like BMC, Bahrain-Merida and Wanty-Groupe Gobert who are yet to win a stage in the 104th Tour de France had missed the decisive move despite trying to enter the early breakaways but they didn't help Team Sky to ride behind the 20 escapees.
Boasson Hagen on the smart side of the roundabout
De Gendt celebrated his country's national day by winning the intermediate sprint in Banon (km 136.5). Keukeleire did it as well, being the first of the 20 leading riders to launch an attack with 61km to go. It was an unsuccessful one. Sicard, Gesbert and Kiserlovski rode away up the col du Pointu with less than 50km to go. More riders went on the offensive 21km before arriving in Salon-de-Provence. Bakelants, Bennati, Albasini, Keukeleire, Boasson Hagen, De Gendt, Arndt, Chavanel and Gesbert made a difference with 17km to go. 2.8km before the end, Boasson Hagen and Arndt took a roundabout on the right side while the seven other riders went left. Boasson Hagen profited from the little gap to create a bigger one and go solo to grab his third stage win at the Tour de France after he did it in Lisieux and Pinerolo for Team Sky in 2011. It's the first stage win for the Dimension Data team. The South African squad encountered success in each Tour de France they took part in so far, with Stephen Cummings in 2015, Mark Cavendish (4) and Cummings in 2016 and now Boasson Hagen. This is the 17th stage win for Norwegian riders at the Tour de France. The first one was by Dag-Otto Lauritzen in Luz-Ardiden 30 years ago and the last one was by Alexander Kristoff in Nîmes in 2014.
