Tour de France Stage 17 ANALYSIS: How Jonathan Milan secured crash-marred sprint victory in Valence

Jonathan Milan extended his lead in the green jersey classification with his second stage win of this Tour de France.

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It was a crash mad sprint of stage 17. We only saw 10 riders coming into the final straight and fighting out for the stage victory. So to give that some context, we’re going to go back and look at how the crash played out. And well, blame, I don’t want to put it that way, but the chain of events that led to the crash. Let’s just identify a few riders. First, we got Jonathan Milan. He is right in the middle, but in the top 10. He had moved himself right up, end up staying in front of the trouble. Back here was Tim Merid sitting a long way back like he so often does, but in the end that’s what took him out of the mix. But what we’re really looking at is this rider here on the right hand side from Coffet. It’s Alexis Renard and here’s Serial Bath coming back off doing his job and then one of the riders from Picnic Poston in the middle. They’re the three that are going to converge and that’s where the crash happens. So Renard moves up on the right hand side and then he tries to come in and get some slipstream. He then squeezes into the picnic pastel rider. He tangles with the rider from group FDJ next to him serial bath and they all tumble. Then it’s just like dominoes. Once one goes plenty of others go down as well. It was absolute carnage in the crash. Binium Gourmet was taken out. Tim Merid, he didn’t fall, but scrubbed off all his speed, pulled his foot out of the pedal, and then just had to make his way to the finish. He wouldn’t be in the mix. But as we then panned forward via the helicopter, you can see 11 riders came through the final corner. And as the sprint lined up, there are only 10 guys left in it. Now, the final lead out was coming from Evenny Federof. He was doing it for his teammate in David Ballerini. So, here is Federov on the front. Ballerini Jordi Mayus Jonathan Milan who’s already got just here Arnold Dele behind that Dy but Dele’s already up alongside Milan instead of just following in the wheel but he’s at least giving himself room and he was not going to get boxed in but as we roll forward you then see they accelerate. DeLe comes back into the wheel of Jonathan Milan. Now they’re all lined up. So one more pause just to see that Mus is looking this side of Ballerini where he should be starting to line himself up looking out to the left the open side and give a little bit of room to run into the wheel. This is what Jonathan Milan here starts to do. He just backs off Jordi Mayo slightly giving himself enough room to move out when he wants to. Delely back here is already starting his wind up but as he does that the rest are all still in the wheel. He comes out to the side then Milan goes props slightly. Delay’s next to him but Delely is coming into the right hand side. There’s a little little flick nothing major from Jonathan Milan but Dele hits the wheel. Milan pushes on. Jordi Mayos comes into the gap that’s created. Challenges late but it was too little too late for me. And Jonathan Milan, well, he puts himself in an even stronger position in the green jersey now and gets his second stage victory of this race in what is quite possibly the last bunch sprint of this tour because Paris, well, that’s going to be a big ask for anyone trying to get over the Malt Mart three times. But on today, Milan gets the spoils.