Tour de France 2023 Stage 17 recap: Jonas Vingegaard cracks Tadej Pogacar again as Felix Gall wins queen stage

Stage 17 is under way with an attack from Valentin Madouas (Groupama-FDJ) and Magnus Cort (EF Education-EasyPost). Krists Neilands (Israel-PremierTech) is also in the mix early on.

If the first two days in the Alps, which come before the time trial and second rest day, are challenging, then this third day is probably the pick of the bunch. Only 166km long but with over 5,000m of climbing, Stage 17 is arguably the queen stage of the Tour and features the Col des Saisies, Cormet de Roselend and Cote de Longefoy (with its technical descent of over 30 hairpins) ahead of the longest – and possibly toughest – climb of the race.

Used for the first time in 2020 when Miguel Angel Lopez took the win, the fearsome Col de la Loze (28.1km at 6%; the Prix Henri Desgrange) returns to give Stage 17 a severe sting in the tail. The climb drags up through Meribel before becoming Europe’s most arduous cycling path which pitches and ramps up without any forgiving corners towards a 20% wall near the top.

The race is not over at the summit, though, with a steep and narrow drop towards the finish on the altiport at Courchevel. It’s unclear how this technical downhill segment will be raced following the tragic death of Switzerland’s Gino Mader following his crash towards the finish of Stage 5 of the Tour de Suisse.

Check out those time gaps back to third-place Adam Yates... After being a two-horse race it's turned into cycling "a trois vitesses" in this Tour.

1. Jonas Vingegaard
2. Tadej Pogacar +1'48
3. Adam Yates +8'52
4. Carlos Rodriguez +8'57
5. Jai Hindley +11'15
6. Sepp Kuss +12'56
7. Pello Bilbao +13'06
8. Simon Yates +13'46
9. David Gaudu +17'38
10. Felix Gall +18'19

The Dane's former team-mate Tom Dumoulin described it as "the greatest time trial in history" after Vingegaard put 1'38" into Pogacar yesterday in the 22.4km race against the clock - a gain of 4.38 seconds per kilometre on the lumpy course between Passy and Combloux.

Tadej Pogacar thrashed everyone - even Wout van Aert - in yesterday's time trial, only to be comprehensively walloped by the man in yellow. Jonas Vingegaard turned a 10-second deficit into a monster 1'48" lead going into today's queen stage in the Alps, where his Slovenian rival will need to do something special to keep this Tour alive.