Tour de France Stage 19: Astana riders on move on stage that never finished

Magnus Cort, Alexey Lutsenko, Gorka Izagirre,and Pello Bilbao were part of a 29-man breakaway, but they got caught by thegroup of GC favorites on the Col de l’Iseran. Cort was able to hang on withsome of the riders fighting for the overall, but he never got the chance to gofor a stage result, as the race got canceled at the top of the climb due to theweather conditions on the descent.

«I felt very good today, but there were too many GC guys in the breakawayas well, so we didn’t get a gap that was big enough to race for a stage win.The group with favorites caught me on the l’Iseran and I was able to hang onwith some of them until the top. Just after we were riding down on the descent,I heard on my radio that the race got canceled. I have all the respect for thedecision, I have been in many situations where they didn’t respect the badweather protocol, so I think this is a good call,» said Magnus Cort.

«It’s a good decision of the race organizer to cancel the stage because itwouldn’t be safe for our riders to continue. Our riders worked hard today toget in the breakaway, but the favorites for the GC were fighting hard for thepodium, so the break didn’t get too much time. I think it’s good that ourriders once again showed their will to fight for a stage win, we can be happywith that,» said sports director Dmitriy Fofonov.

For the general classification, the times were taken on the top of Col del’Iseran, making Egan Bernal the new overall leader after stage 19. Tomorrow’sstage 20 will start in Albertville to have a summit finish (HC) in the mountainresort of Val Thorens after the riders already climbed two categorized climbs.