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Roglic climbs and descends to stage victory and third position overall in queen stage Tour de France

Primoz Roglic has won the final mountain stage in the Tour de France in an impressive way. In the spectacular Pyrenees stage, Roglic made his decisive move during the descent of the Col du Aubisque and won the queen stage in the Tour for the second consecutive year. Because of his stage victory, Roglic climbed to the third place in the general classification. Steven Kruijswijk also did very well. He is now fifth in the standings.

The victory in Laruns is the third stage win for LottoNL-Jumbo in this Tour de France. During the first week, Dylan Groenewegen sprinted to the victory in Chartres and Amiens. For Roglic, who won amongst others the Tour of the Basque Country and the Tour de Romandie earlier this year, it meant his eighth victory of the season. For Team LottoNL-Jumbo it’s the twenty-third win of the season.

The stage, with mythical climbs along the way such as the Tourmalet and the Aubisque, was a great spectacle. After Team LottoNL-Jumbo's Robert Gesink had kept the breakaway under control, Steven Kruijswijk launched the attack on the Col du Soulor. Both Kruijswijk and Roglic attacked several times, but only in the technical descent Roglic was able to ride away from his rivals.

“I’m very happy with this victory”, Roglic said. “It’s a special feeling to win again in the Tour de France after my stage win last year. This can’t be described in words. It’s just perfect. I felt very good and made optimal use of it. Steven and I kept attacking. In the descent, when I saw that nobody followed me, I just went full throttle. The team was very strong today and I want to thank the team for their efforts. Without my team mates it would have never been possible to win here. I’m already looking forward to the time trial. I’ll do my best to keep my podium position and who knows what else we can do.”

Steven Kruijswijk climbed to the fifth place in the general classification. “It’s a beautiful day. It was a very tough stage, but as a team, we played it perfectly. Primoz was very strong today and Robert has also done a tremendous job to decrease the gap to the breakaway. The plan was that I would attack at the ascent of the Soulor and see how they would react. Just before the top, Primoz came back. We both tried it a few times. I’m glad he finished it off in a superb way. We’ve won the stage and we’re now third and fifth overall. We can hardly do any better.”

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