Tour de France standings unchanged as Matej Mohoric wins Stage 19

Matej Mohoric, Slovenian rider for Team Bahrain Victorious won Stage 19 of the 2021 Tour de France.

Matej Mohoric, Slovenian rider for Team Bahrain Victorious has won his second stage at this year’s Tour de France, with Stage 19.

This makes a quarter of all the stages in the race so far dominated by Slovenian riders – two won by Mohoric, three including an individual time trial stage by Tadej Pogacar.

Matej Mohoric gets two stage wins

Mohoric rode in his usual solo breakaway style for most of the 207-kilometer long stage between Mourenx and Libourne with another breakaway group of riders trying to chase him but falling apart.

He kept his head down and time trialed his way to the finish line with a consistent gap of just under a minute between him and the chasers.

He came across the line with a finger to his lips possibly referencing critics of the team being silenced as police raided the team’s hotel the day before confiscating training data and the riders’ phones in what many suspect to be a potential drugs search.

He told reporters prior to the stage that he and the team had nothing to hide.

He was also awarded the most combative rider for the stage.

He has now won both the longest stage of the Tour with Stage 7 and the second-longest with Stage 19.

Tour de France standings unchanged after Stage 19

There was an opportunity to shake up the general classification standings today but it did not happen.

A crash early on brought the peloton to a halt before the race restarted.

Most of the riders for general classification used the stage to recover from the final mountain climb on Stage 18.

Tomorrow’s Stage 20 brings an individual time trial where riders might try to gain some time and move up the standings.

Pogacar, last year’s winner, is the current holder of the yellow jersey for the overall race lead, the white jersey for the best young rider and the polka dot jersey for the best climber.

Second overall is Jonas Vingegaard, with Richard Carapaz in third, Ben O’Connor in fourth, and Wilco Kelderman in fifth.

Mark Cavendish still retains the sprint points classification lead with the green jersey.

After the final stage in Paris on Sunday, riders will compete at the Tokyo Olympics starting July 26 and then at the three-week-long final Grand Tour of 2021 La Vuelta d’Espana on Aug. 14.