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Christophe Laporte after his first stage win in the Tour de France
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CHRISTIAN HARTMANN / REUTERS
Christophe Laporte has won stage 19 of the 109th Tour de France, finally giving France its first victory.
After leaving the Pyrenees, the 29-year-old won on Friday on the flat 188.3-kilometer stretch between Castelnau-Magnoac and Cahors ahead of Belgian Jasper Philipsen and Italian Alberto Dainese.
There were no changes at the top of the overall standings before the last time trial.
Jonas Vingegaard successfully defended his yellow jersey and is 3:26 minutes ahead of defending champion Tadej Pogačar.
Geraint Thomas is third, 8:00 minutes behind.
On Saturday, the tour will be finally decided in the fight against the clock over 40.7 kilometers.
Interruption due to protests
At the beginning of the stage, protesters on the street again caused a stir.
30 kilometers after the start, the race was neutralized because of another protest on the track.
It was not initially known who exactly the protesters were.
The race had already been neutralized on the 10th stage due to a sit-in.
The protesters were nine people from an environmental protection movement (»derniere generation«), which, among other things, campaigns against food waste.
The field also thinned out further shortly before the end.
The Spaniard Enric Mas from the Movistar team had to abandon the Tour of France after a positive corona test.
This was announced by the team from last year's sixth and Vuelta second from 2018 and 2021 in the morning.
This means that 139 of the 176 drivers who originally started and seven out of nine Germans are still there.
kjo/dpa