Richard Carapaz A new goal has been set here Tour de France: became the first Ecuadorian to finish as king of the mountains. It will be an end to an edition that faced doubts for the general classification, but more than fulfilled by wearing yellow for the first time and conquering its first phase.
After leading two of the three climbs of stage 19, the EF cyclist has his hopes of becoming king of the mountain on the final podium. He now has a 14-point lead over Slovenian Tadej Pogacar and leads four first-class and one second-class climbs this Saturday and another second-class one in Sunday’s time trial.
“This morning we set our priority as winning the mountain jersey. At one point I thought we might as well win the stage, but I was very tired after two days of breakaways. At least we achieved the main goal,” said the Ecuadorian cyclist, who was chosen as the most competitive runner of the day.
This Friday he won the first two ports, Vars and La Bonette, the ceiling of the Tour, which gave double points, so he added 60 points, in addition to another 14 at the finish line. That allowed him to overtake Slovenian Tadej Pogacar, who leads that classification.
Born in El Caramelo, above 2,800 meters, the Ecuadorian moved like a fish in water in this phase of the highest altitude. “All the runners in my country dream of him because in Ecuador there are many mountains. Being the King of the Mountain is very important to me. I will try to keep this jersey until the end. This is my great personal goal, and the team is also supporting me a lot to achieve it,” he said.
Carapaz is on the verge of taking the red points jersey in 2020, when he finished second in the Roche-sur-Foron stage, where he crossed the finish line with his teammate Michal Kwiatkowski, he led the classification of climbers . But in the penultimate stage, Pogacar took it with his victory in the La Planche des Belles Filles time trial, where he also secured his first Tour victory.
While the Slovenian entered the Champs Elysees in yellow, Carapaz wore the red dots in the final stage, although he did not reach the final podium. Now, he wants to achieve this and to do so he enters the breakaway of the day with the American Matteo Jorgenson, the British Simon Yates, the Australian Jai Hindley, the Dutch Wilco Kelderman and the Spanish Cristian Rodríguez.
The 2024 Tour could be a great Tour for the third in 2021. In Turin, in the third stage, he became the first Ecuadorian to wear the yellow jersey, becoming the twenty-fifth rider of all time to wear yellow that jersey the three grand stage tour.
The Ecuadorian returned to the Tour podium on stage 15 ending at the Plateau de Beille, where after starring in the day’s breakaway he was selected as the most defensive on the stage. Two days later he did it again in the Superdévoluy, where he achieved his first stage victory in the Tour, making him the 110th rider with victories in the big three.
Source: La Verdad
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