Miguel Angel Lopez wins on Col de la Loze (Tour de France retrospective -TDF 2020)

Col de la Loze was introduced to Tour de France in the 17th stage in 2020. The day delivered a Pog&Rog Show, a Lopez solo and a suddenly disappearing Bahrain-McLaren "suicide squad".

The 2 minutes gap between the three breakaway riders (Julian Alaphilippe, Richard Carapaz, Gorka Izagirre) and the peloton at foot of the 21 km long Col de la Loze indicated that the winner of the stage would come from the main bunch.

Although Primoz Roglic was the cyclist in yellow, and according to tradition, his team, Jumbo-Visma was ment to lead the peloton,  Bahrain-McLaren was setting the pace since half way of the stage. They tried to make Mikel Landa the first conquerer of Col de la Loze. Unfortunatelly, their efforts never paid out, with around 4 km to go the last two riders, Damiano Caruso and Mikel Landa just disappeared from the front of the favourite group.

Also disappeared  David de la Cruz, the last helper of Tadej Pogacar. In 2020, unlike the subsequent years, when, among others,  Rafal Majka has been hired as superdomestique, UAE Team Emirates was not entirely prepared for the fight for the yellow jersey. For a little time Tadej Pogacar himself led the reduced yellow jersey group

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From the breakaway trio, first Julian Alaphilippe, then Gorka Izagirre dopped. From 7km to 3,5 km Richard Carapaz rode solo at the front of the race.

After the last breakaway rider was caught, Miguel Angel Lopez attacked. Mostly, he was riding solo, although for a while Sepp Kuss, the last remaining helper of Primoz Roglic joined him.

Behind Lopez, Roglic and Pogacar were struggling with each other. The man in the yellow seemed stronger, at the end of the day, he was even able to expand his lead.

But at the end, it did not matter. In the penultimate stage, Pogacar delivered a sensational performance and a managed one of the greatest plot twists in the history of Tour de France.