Top Banana: Tour de France stage 19 – Robert Gesink
Primoz Roglic descended in style to take the stage Laruns, bag the bonus seconds on the line and move into a podium position for the first time this Tour.
It was a fine win, thanks in large part to the work of his LottoNL-Jumbo team-mate Robert Gesink.
Prior to reaching the ultimate challenge of the day, the Col d’Aubisque, it appeared that the leading quartet of Mikel Landa, Romain Bardet, Ilnur Zakarin and Rafa Majka held sufficient advantage to hold off the GC group, including the likes of Thomas, Froome, Dumoulin and the LottoNL-Jumbo pairing of Steven Kruijswijk and Primoz Roglic.
Gesink buried himself on the second category Col des Borderes to halve the leaders’ advantage and drag his two GC contenders back into contention, putting half the group out the back, then practically stalling on the road having pulled over, totally spent.
This set up Roglic and his superb descending ability to take the plaudits and the podium flowers, but he’ll no doubt be giving his Dutch workhorse a big sweaty hug back in the bus.
Just be careful not to squash his Rouleur banana…
TOP BANANAS 2018
Stage 4 – Guillaume van Keirsbulck
Stage 5 – Toms Skujins
Stage 6 – Antwan Tolhoek
Stage 7 – An empty field
La Course – Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig
Stage 13- Tom Scully
Stage 14 – Philippe Gilbert
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