First everything looks like a furious coup, then Florian Lipowitz has to pay tribute to his own attack. In the end, the German shooting star saves third place and the white jersey is just to the finish.
Florian Lipowitz was written on the face. With the very last forces, he took the last hurdle of the brutal Alpine stage of the Tour de France and struggled to the finish at the Col de la Loze at an altitude of 2300 meters.
After a break -in on the last mountain, he almost defended third place in the overall ranking and the white jersey of the best young professional.
“The stage was super hard. I felt pretty good, and when I was the group with Jonas [Vingegaard] and Tadej [Pogacar] they looked at each other. I tried to keep my pace, but on the last climb I went out of energy, “said the Swabian at the finish.” From then on it was only a fight. Onley and Johannessen were strong. Tomorrow is a new day. I hope I can relax well and then it goes on. “
In the last mounting stage on Friday, he goes to his pursuer only 22 seconds.
New plan with Roglic for the mountain final
“I am glad that I made it to the finish. The last two kilometers were really hell,” said Lipowitz. At the foot of the final climb, he himself took the initiative and attacked. At first he shot past Pogacar and Co, but later he had to pay tribute to the high pace and collapsed.
“I tried it and had a gap. But on the last ten kilometers I noticed that the energy was no longer there. It was only a pain.”
In the end, the 24-year-old lost 1:39 minutes to the British onley. The decision about the podium square is probably on the 19th stage of the tour on Friday.
Lipowitz announced that as a team you had to “have a good plan”. This didn’t really work on Thursday. The German and teammate Primoz Roglic drove their own races without supporting each other.