MERIBEL, France (Reuters) – Colombian Miguel Angel Lopez won the 17th stage of the Tour de France, a 170-km mountain trek from Grenoble as Primoz Roglic tightened his grip on the overall lead on Wednesday.
Roglic took second place at top of the Col de la Loze, an unforgiving 21.5-km ascent at an average gradient of 7.8%, to extend his advantage over fellow Slovenian Tadej Pogacar, who came home third, to 57 seconds.
Lopez, who jumped away from the leading group 3.5 kilometres from the finish, crossed the line 15 seconds ahead of Roglic and 30 seconds before Pogacar.
The 21-year-old Pogacar now faces an uphill battle to unsettle Roglic, who suffered but was always in control.
Lopez moved up to third in the standings, 1:26 off the pace, ahead of another gruelling mountain stage on Thursday, over 175km between Meribel and La Roche sur Foron.
(Reporting by Julien Pretot; Editing by Toby Davis and Christian Radnedge)
