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.
Tour de France 2020 – stage 17 results (Grenoble – Col de la Loze):
| 1 | Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana) | 4:49:08 |
| 2 | Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) | +15” |
| 3 | Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) | +30” |
| 4 | Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma) | +56” |
| 5 | Richie Porte (Trek-Segafredo) | +01’01” |
| 6 | Enric Mas (Movistar) | +01’12” |
| 7 | Mikel Landa (Bahrain McLaren) | +01’20” |
| 8 | Adam Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) | ,, |
| 9 | Rigoberto Uran (EF Pro Cycling) | +01’59” |
| 10 | Tom Dumoulin (Jumbo-Visma) | +02’13” |
| 11 | Richard Carapaz (Ineos Grenadiers) | +02’41” |
| 12 | Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) | +02’48” |
| 13 | Damiano Caruso (Bahrain McLaren) | +03’30” |
| 14 | Guillaume Martin (Cofidis) | +03’59” |
| 15 | Valentin Madouas (Groupama-FDJ) | +04’09” |
| 16 | Kenny Elissonde (Trek-Segafredo) | +06’12” |
| 17 | Carlos Verona (Movistar) | +06’53” |
| 18 | Davide De La Cruz (UAE Team Emirates) | +07’15” |
| 19 | Wout Van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) | ,, |
| 20 | Warren Barguil (Arkea-Samsic) | ,, |
Tour de France 2020 – general classification after stage 17:
| 1 | Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) | 74:56:04 |
| 2 | Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) | +54” |
| 3 | Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana) | +01’26” |
| 4 | Richie Porte (Trek-Segafredo) | +03’05” |
| 5 | Adam Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) | +03’14” |
| 6 | Rigoberto Uran (EF Pro Cycling) | +03’24” |
| 7 | Mikel Landa (Bahrain McLaren) | +03’27” |
| 8 | Enric Mas (Movistar) | +04’18” |
| 9 | Tom Dumoulin (Jumbo-Visma) | +07’23” |
| 10 | Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) | +09’31” |
| 11 | Guillaume Martin (Cofidis) | +10’35” |
| 12 | Damiano Caruso (Bahrain McLaren) | +12’30” |
| 13 | Richard Carapaz (Ineos Grenadiers) | +19’55” |
| 14 | Warren Barguil (Arkea-Samsic) | +25’22” |
| 15 | Nairo Quintana (Arkea-Samsic) | +30’51” |
| 16 | Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma) | +35’53” |
| 17 | Pello Bilbao (Bahrain McLaren) | +53’24” |
| 18 | Pierre Rolland (B&B Hotels-Vital Concept) | +55’11” |
| 19 | Carlos Verona (Movistar) | +1h08’42” |
| 20 | Gorka Izagirre (Astana) | +1h10’18” |
