Tim Wellens had time to high-five fans inside the final kilometre as he soloed to victory on stage 15 of the Tour de France into Carcassonne with his team-mate Tadej Pogacar retaining the yellow jersey.
Wellens, 34, completed his set of Grand Tour stage victories, attacking from a reduced four-man breakaway with 44 kilometres remaining of the 169km stage from Muret.
The Belgian national champion quickly opened a sizeable gap before the long downhill run into the medieval city, where his margin of victory over compatriot Victor Campenaerts was 1:28.
In the confusion of another frantic day of racing, Julian Alaphilippe celebrated as though he had won the stage when he edged a three-way sprint for third, having apparently been without a working radio after hurting his shoulder in an earlier crash.
Instead, it was a fifth stage victory of this Tour for UAE Team Emirates-XRG, with Pogacar having taken the other four on his way to building an advantage of four minutes 13 seconds over Jonas Vingegaard going into Monday’s rest day.
There was no change at the top of the general classification, with the main favourites finishing some six minutes after Wellens took the win, although Ineos Grenadiers’ Carlos Rodriguez made the most of getting in the breakaway by leapfrogging Ben Healy into ninth overall. Florian Lupowitz remains third, just shy of eight minutes off yellow and one minute 25 seconds ahead of 22-year-old Scot Oscar Onley.
Wellens, who triumphed in the Belgian champion’s jersey a day before his home country’s national day, and a day after compatriot Remco Evenepoel was forced to exit the race in tears, savoured every moment on the ride into town.
“It was a very special victory,” Wellens said. “Everybody knows the Tour de France, everybody wants to ride the Tour de France but not many get to win at the Tour de France so it’s very beautiful.
“I knew it was going to be very beautiful to complete my trilogy of the Giro, Tour and Vuelta and I knew I had to enjoy the moment. I kept riding to the finish line because I wanted a big gap and to maybe put my bike in the air on the finish, but I was so happy I forgot to do it.”
In keeping with so much of this Tour to date, it was another chaotic stage as a hilly route across southern France offered little let-up after three days in the Pyrenees.
A furious fight to get into the breakaway was interrupted by an early crash that split the peloton, with Vingegaard and Lipowitz among those held up.
Pogacar tried to slow the pace to allow them to close a one-minute gap, but others were still attacking to get down the road, including Vingegaard’s Visma-Lease a Bike teammates, and it took a full 20 kilometres for the main favourites to come back together.
Around 35 riders did go clear of the main bunch, and Wellens used all his experience to sit in the wheels and not offer up turns until launching his decisive attack, where the road continued to rise after the summit of the final categorised climb.
It was Wellens’ first Grand Tour stage win since he won two stages of the 2020 Vuelta a Espana to add to his two Giro d’Italia stage victories.
