Marcel Kittel crashes and abandons
173 riders started stage 17 at La Mûre. One non-starter: Marcel Sieberg (Lotto-Soudal). A crash occurred after 20km of racing, involving polka dot jersey holder Warren Barguil (Sunweb) and green jersey holder Marcel Kittel (Quick-Step Floors) among others. A 33-man breakaway group was formed at the same time with Cyril Gautier and Mathias Frank (AG2R-La Mondiale), Jonathan Castroviejo and Jesus Herrada (Movistar), Michael Gogl, Jarlinson Pantano and Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo), Amaël Moinard, Nicolas Roche and Danilo Wyss (BMC), Darwin Atapuma and Ben Swift (UAE), Rudy Molard (FDJ), Esteban Chaves (Orica-Scott), Serge Pauwels (Dimension Data), Pawel Poljanski (Bora-Hansgrohe), Robert Kiserlovski (Katusha-Alpecin), Thomas De Gendt and Tony Gallopin (Lotto-Soudal), Michael Matthews, Simon Geschke and Albert Timmer (Sunweb), Nicolas Edet and Dani Navarro (Cofidis), Primoz Roglic (LottoNL-Jumbo), Thomas Voeckler and Sylvain Chavanel (Direct Energie), Alberto Bettiol and Dylan van Baarle (Cannondale-Drapac), Ondrej Cink (Bahrain-Merida), Marco Minnaard (Wanty-Groupe Gobert), Brice Feillu and Pierre-Luc Périchon (Fortuneo-Oscaro). Defending Barguil's position in the King of the Mountains, Matthews outsprinted De Gendt atop the col d'Ornon (cat. 2, km 30). The duo forged on so Matthews also collected 20 points at the intermediate sprint to reduce his deficit to Kittel to only nine points. But Kittel called it a race at half way.
Contador in search of his good old days
De Gendt and Matthews also climbed to col de la Croix-de-Fer in the lead until they got caught by Navarro. All eyes were on Alberto Contador (Trek-Segafredo) who attacked from the yellow jersey group, followed by Nairo Quintana (Movistar) who couldn't hold his pace. Contador bridged a gap of four minutes to come across to his team-mates Mollema and Pantano. De Gendt and Navarro stayed away until 89km to go, after which Trek-Segafredo strongly led the peloton on the way to the col du Télégraphe and the col du Galibier, the highest peak of the Tour. Roglic was first to attack at the exit of Valloire with 45km to go meanwhile the yellow jersey group led by Team Sky was 3.30 adrift. Contador and Pauwels went with him. Atapuma and Frank rejoined them 11km before the summit. With 6.5km remaining in the ascent, Roglic attacked again and it was the decisive move.
Uran moves to second place overall
In the yellow jersey group, Dan Martin (Quick-Step Floors) and Romain Bardet (AG2R-La Mondiale) successively attacked. Fabio Aru (Astana) struggled and eventually lost contact. Winning the sprint for second place behind Roglic in Serre-Chevalier, Rigoberto Uran (Cannondale-Drapac) moved into second overall in the same time with Bardet while Aru dropped to fourth with a deficit of 53 seconds. Roglic who hails from Strahovlje in the Slovenian mountains was famous for an horrific crash as a ski jumper in Planeca in 2007. As a neo pro, he won the big time trial of the Giro d'Italia in the Chianti area last year. He delivered in the French Alps the 49th stage victory at the Tour de France for the LottoNL-Jumbo team that is the second longest serving after Movistar since they have taken part in the race since 1984 as Kwantum-Hallen and been known as Rabobank for many years.
