Tour de France 2023: Tearful Matej Mohoric pips Kasper Asgreen on Stage 19, Jonas Vingegaard defends yellow

Matej Mohoric (Bahrain Victorious) edged Kasper Asgreen (Soudal-QuickStep) on the bike throw – just – to win Stage 19 at the 2023 Tour de France as the breakaway stayed clear again.

The Slovenian launched out of Asgreen's slipstream just moments before the line, with the pair crossing the line in unison. After a long wait, Mohoric was confirmed as the winner via the tightest of photo finishes and immediately burst into tears.

Ben O'Connor (AG2R Citroen) opened up the sprint in the three-man break, aware his rivals straight-line speed was superior, but the Australian was easily closed down and had to settle for third.

With only a big day in the mountains on Saturday, and Sunday's Parisien procession, to come, the rolling 173km stage presented the last chance saloon for most riders and teams. Even with three weeks of hard racing in the riders' legs, an almighty battle for the break was predicted, but few could have forecast that the scrap would last for almost the first two hours of racing. Or that the strong group of nine that comprised it would not be the one that made it to the line.

The course, which closely resembled in profile a sprint classic, was one on which almost any rider, bar the GC favourites and pure sprinters, could have fancied their chances. Victor Campenaerts (Lotto-Dstny) was the most active from the outset, while Stage 18 winner Asgreen was another early antagonist, even if neither's first efforts were allowed to stick.

After some crosswinds caused trouble, nine strong riders eventually slipped away, settled down and started working together. Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal-QuickStep), Warren Barguil (Arkea-Samsic), Jack Haig (Bahrain Victorious), Nils Politt (Bora-hansgrohe), Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek), Georg Zimmermann (Intermarche-Circus-Wanty), Campenaerts, Tiesj Benoot (Jumbo-Visma), Matteo Trentin (UAE Emirates) looked like the kind of move that might make it to the finish.

Two teams that missed out, Israel-Premier Tech, but especially Uno-X, were determined not to let that happen. With a little help from EF Education-EasyPost, they prevented the group's lead from ever growing much beyond a minute. After Politt snapped a chain, costing the group one ninth of its power, the chasers had reason to believe they might bring the race back together. The intermediate sprint was really what made the difference happen, however, as Alpecin-Deceuinick added to the strength behind to help Jasper Philipsen add to his green jersey points. That brought the groups close enough to allow some riders from the peloton to begin jumping across, which itself brought about a 30-rider split that the remaining GC teams were willing to let go.

Such a large, varied group was never going to work well enough together. Campenaerts was unwilling to take his chances on a natural selection, so chose to go sooner rather than leave it too late. He time trialled away with Simon Clarke (Israel-Premier Tech) clinging desperately to his wheel. Almost a minute's lead began to look dangerous with 40km to go, but by that point it had still only been Uno-X doing the chasing, with most of the big names still to get themselves into the game.

Get themselves into the game they did, but it was a severe case of cramp for Clarke that left Campenaerts flying solo.

The larger group made it to the final, Cat. 3 climb, the Cote d'Ivory where Asgreen attacked most aggressively out of it, with Mohoric and O'Connor the only ones able to go with him. They soon swept past Campenaerts before rapidly forming an alliance over the top. They knew their task was simple: ride together, as hard as they could. Although their lead was never much more than 30 seconds, it was never much less, either.

A diminished group of chasers, even one which contained the strength of Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Alberto Bettiol (EF Education-EasyPost) and Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) did not work as well together, nor fight as hard to bring the group back, as the group did to stay away.

In the final, straight kilometre, O'Connor knew his only chance was to go early. He allowed a gap to open up so he could accelerate out of it but Asgreen was as quick to it as Mohoric was to jump on the Dane's wheel. It was impossible to call in real time, only the photo finish showing that Mohoric had taken his third Tour de France stage victory, and his team's third in this edition.

Philipsen won the sprint behind for fourth – the second straight day the Belgian was left wondering what might have been.

An emotion-wracked Mohoric unloaded three weeks worth of feeling in his post-race interview: "It’s just hard and cruel to be a professional cyclist. You suffer a lot in preparations. You sacrifice your life, your family, and you do everything you can to get here ready. After a couple of days you realise everybody is so incredibly strong."

Describing how he, Asgreen and O'Connor, got away to decide the victory, Mohoric continued: "I felt sorry for Ben because I knew he has no chance in the sprint, but he still pushed to stay away, even though he knows he’s likely to lose.

"In the closing metres, when Ben went, because it was his only chance, I knew Kasper was going to react, because he’s by far the strongest. I just followed his wheel and he led me out. I don’t have a strong sprint but after a hard day like this you never know. I’m just happy for myself and for the team, and for everything that’s happened in the last month."

Meanwhile, Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) and his flagging GC challengers came home over 13 minutes in arrears. The Dane leads Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) by 7'35" ahead of Saturday's final competitive stage in the mountains.

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