Nils Politt

July 24, 2017

Arndt Wins 2017 Tour Point d’Appui

Bicycle racers in the Tour de France rounding a curve.

Nikias Arndt, winner of the Point d’Appui in the 2017 Tour de France, rides in protection of Warren Barguil, the holder of the polka dot jersey.

After a tour in which the Point d’Appui changed hands 16 times, Nikias Arndt of Team Sunweb grabbed the fulcrum on Saturday’s individual time trial and held onto it Sunday, despite some last minute changes in the standings swirling around him.

Arndt was one of the riders leading out the eventual winner of the points classification, Michael Matthews, but also riding in support of Sunweb’s eventual winner of the King of the Mountains, Warren Barguil, who was also named the most-combative rider overall. So Sunweb takes home four of the top seven honors available in the Tour: the green jersey, the polka dot, the red jersey number and the gray jersey of the Point d’Appui.

Arndt won minor tours early in his career, including the Tour of Alanya and the Tour of Berlin, more recently winning the points classification in the Tour of Bulgaria and best young rider of the Arctic Race of Norway. He won the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race earlier this year. He has ridden in the Vuelta a Españas three times, finishing as the Lanterne Rouge in the 2016 edition, and twice in the Giro d’Italia, winning stage 21 of the 2016 Giro.

This was Arndt’s first Tour de France. He finished 11th on Stage 1 of the Tour, the individual time trial, with the same time as fellow German Marcel Kittel of the Quick-Step Floors team and Edvald Boasson Hagen of the Dimension Data team. He rose to 10th place on Stage 2 and held that spot until Stage 5, slowly settling back to the middle of the peloton. In the final time trial of the Tour, Stage 20, Arndt finished at 7th place on the stage, showing he still had legs under him. Sunweb, which signed him for the 2017 season, announced the next day that it would extend his contract.

The winner of the Tour, of course, was Christopher Froome of Team Sky, and his teammate Luke Rowe finished as the Lanterne Rouge, 4 hours, 35 minutes and 52 seconds adrift. The median time of the race also went to a Team Sky cyclist, Michal Kwiatkowski, who had a time of 2 hours, 7 minutes and 48 seconds.

On the stage, Dylan Groenewegen of Team LottoNl-Jumbo won the sprint on the Champs-Élysées, and Daniel Martin of the Quick-Step Floors team, was the fulcrum finisher for the day.

The general classification fulcrum placement by stage:

  • Stage 1: No fulcrum.
  • Stage 2: Jay McCarthy of Bora-Hansgrohe.
  • Stage 3: Janez Brajkovič of Bahrain-Merida.
  • Stage 4: No fulcrum.
  • Stage 5: Vegard Stake Laengen of UAE Team Emirates.
  • Stage 6: Yoann Offredo of the Wanty-Groupe Gobert team.
  • Stage 7: Yukiya Arashiro of the Bahrain-Merida team.
  • Stage 8: Mike Teunissen of Team Sunweb.
  • Stage 9: Nils Politt of the Katusha-Alpecin team.
  • Stage 10: No fulcrum.
  • Stage 11: Michael Albasini of the Orica-Scott team.
  • Stage 12: Paul Martens of Team LottoNl-Jumbo.
  • Stage 13: Michael Schär of BMC Racing Team.
  • Stage 14: No fulcrum.
  • Stage 15: Andrey Amador of Movistar Team.
  • Stage 16: Jay McCarthy of the Bora-Hansgrohe team.
  • Stage 17: Danilo Wyss of BMC Racing Team.
  • Stage 18: Andrey Amador of Movistar Team.
  • Stage 19: Danilo Wyss of BMC Racing Team. Wyss finished on the cusps of the 2013 Vuelta.
  • Stage 20: Nikias Arndt of Team Sunweb.
  • Stage 21: Nikias Arndt of Team Sunweb.
Photo of bicycle racer Nils Politt
July 9, 2017

Crashes, Time Limit Eliminate a Dozen; New Point d’Appui

Portrait of bicycle racer Nils Politt.

Nils Politt

Nils Politt of the Katusha-Alpecin team landed on the fulcrum of the 2017 Tour de France after five riders abandoned due to crashes and another seven riders, including half the FDJ team, were eliminated after finishing beyond the time limit.

In 2013, Politt finished first in the time trial of the German National Under-23 Road Championships, and won the road race the next year while also finishing second in the time trial. He signed with Katusha as a stagiaire in 2015 and is riding in his first Grand Tour.

Richie Porte, team leader for BMC and the mostly likely cyclist to challenge Tour leader Chris Froome, took a hard fall on the final downhill of the stage after a touch of the rear brakes that locked them up and sent his bicycle into the left verge and him across the road into the right wall. Dan Martin went down in the chaos as well but was able to remount and continue to the finish.

Other crashes on the day:

  • Team Sky’s Geraint Thomas, the early Tour leader and still holding second place at the beginning of the stage, broke his collarbone in a crash on the descent of the Col de la Biche in which Rafal Majka of Bora-Hansgrohe went down directly in front of him. Majka resumed the race and finished. Coincidentally, Thomas abandoned the 2017 Giro d’Italia on Stage 9 as well.
  • Just 5 kilometers into the race, Manuele Mori of UAE Team Emirates and Robert Gesink of Team LottoNl-Jumbo went down in a crash along with Angelo Tulik of the Direct Energie team. Mori had a broken shoulder blade, and Gesink had a fractured vertebra. Tulik was able to continue. Gesink’s teammate Jos Van Emden also withdrew from the race.

Four team members for FDJ — Arnaud Demare, Mickael Delage, Jacopo Guarnieri and Ignatas Konovalovas — were eliminated for finishing outside the time limit on the stage, as were Mark Renshaw of the Dimension Data team, Matteo Trentin of the Quick-Step Floors team and Juraj Sagan of the Bora-Hansgrohe team.

The stage finish proved heart-breaking for Warren Barguil of Team Sunweb and a triumph of human will over mechanical deficiency for Rigoberto Uran of Cannondale-Drapac. Barguil was the lone survivor of the early break, but a select group of riders including Froome and Uran eventually caught Barguil several kilometers from the finish. He was able to sit-on and regain some strength.

Meanwhile, Uran suffered a mechanical problem with his rear derailleur. A mechanic from the neutral car gave it a couple of tugs to place the chain in a sprocket that Uran could ride with on the relatively flat section, but in essence he was riding a fixie for the last couple of kilometers. He also had trouble with his earpiece coming out and popped into his mouth so as not to lose it, so he wasn’t breathing through his mouth too much.

Nevertheless, Uran got a jump as the group neared the finish. Barguil swung out of the slipstream and appeared to grab the line with a late lunge, even celebrating with a fist pump, but it was all for naught as the photo of the photo finish showed Uran with an inch on Barguil.

On the stage, Matteo Bono of UAE Team Emirates finished at the fulcrum.

Chris Froome remains the Tour leader, and Olivier Le Gac of the FDJ team remains the Lanterne Rouge, nearly 2 hours adrift of the leader.