Lennard Kämna avenged his Bora-Hansgrohe team who spent a lot of energy, mostly at the service of Peter Sagan, before they claimed their first stage win on stage 16 at Villard-de-Lans. It’s the first German victory at the Tour de France since John Degenkolb on stage 9 to Roubaix in 2018. After taking his first pro success in stage 4 of the Critérium du Dauphiné and coming second to Dani Martinez at Puy Mary, the 24 year old met all the expectations since he was a runner-up at the 2017 u23 world championship behind Benoît Cosnefroy who miraculously retained the polka dot jersey while Primoz Roglic quietly stayed in yellow on the eve of the queen stage to col de la Loze.
18 RIDERS IN THE LEAD
156 riders took the start of stage 16 at La Tour-du-Pin. It was a very active start. A 25 riders group rode away at km 8, including French attackers Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) and Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-Quick Step) along with Richard Carapaz (Ineos-Grenadier). Carapaz attacked again after the regrouping at km 17. Nicolas Roche (Sunweb) went with him. They formed a front group of 15 riders with addition at km 22 of Andrey Amador (Ineos-Grenadier), Lennard Kämna, Daniel Oss (Bora-Hansgrohe), Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-Quick Step), Sébastien Reichenbach (Groupama-FDJ), Alberto Bettiol (EF Education First), Winner Anacona, Warren Barguil (Arkéa-Samsic), Imanol Erviti, Carlos Verona (Movistar Team), Matteo Trentin (CCC Team), Chris Juul Jensen (Mitchelton-Scott), Roche (Sunweb), Quentin Pacher (B&B Hotels-Vital Concept). Trentin took 20 points at the intermediate sprint at km 44.5. It became an 18-man breakaway group when Pierre Rolland (B&B Hotels-Vital Concept), Tiesj Benoot and Casper Pedersen (Sunweb) made the junction at km 56.
PIERRE ROLLAND HUNTING FOR THE POLKA DOT JERSEY
Rolland crested col de Porte in the lead. Neilson Powless (EF), Pavel Sivakov (Ineos-Grenadier), Romain Sicard (Total Direct Energie), Mikel Nieve (Mitchelton-Scott) and Simon Geschke (CCC) bridged the gap at km 56 to make it a front group of 23 riders. Rolland also soloed to take another 5 KOM points atop côte de Revel. The deficit of the peloton was 12’ with 60km to go and 12’30’’ with 40km to go. Pacher was first to attack from the leading group 35km before the end as they started climbing to St-Nizier-du-Moucherotte (cat. 1). 6km before the summit, following a strong pull by Amador, four riders went behind the Frenchman: Reichenbach, Carapaz, Kämna and Alaphilippe. It made a leading group of five riders 25km before the end. Kämna sped up to take the KOM and continued solo after the summit with 18km remaining.
LENNARD KÄMNA SMART AND STRONG
After seizing the right moment to get rid of the winner of the 2019 Giro d’Italia, Kämna remained composed till the end. Being a stronger time trialist than Carapaz, he only extended his lead over the Equatorian who left Team Ineos Grenadier with no stage victory at the Tour de France since Geraint Thomas at L’Alpe d’Huez in 2018. Swiss national champion Sébastien Reichenbach (Groupama-FDJ) rounded out the podium.
