• Matteo Trentin handily won Stage 17 of the Tour de France with a powerful solo ride to the foot of the high Alps.
• The Italian attacked the breakaway and put in more than 40 seconds on his chasers, mastering the final climb and descent to Gap.
• The peloton stayed together, with no changes to the top of the General Classification before three hard days in the mountains.

Matteo Trentin made one of the most dominant rides of the 2019 Tour de France so far, winning Stage 17 with a monstrous solo performance on Wednesday.

The 29-year-old Italian attacked on the stage’s slow ascent to the Alps, putting in more than 40 seconds on the chase group as he charged up the day’s final climb, the Category 3 Col de Sentinelle, in the midst of a brutal heatwave in southeastern France. He then mastered the fast descent to the finish in the mountain town of Gap, earning his third career Tour win and his Mitchelton–Scott team its fourth stage victory of the race this year.

In the process, he left his rivals struggling to keep up. Despite several attempts, no one had enough left in the tank to respond successfully to Trentin, who demonstrated the kind of controlled, capable performance that won him the European Road Cycling Championships in Glasgow, U.K., last summer.

“It was really an emotional finish,” Trentin told reporters afterward. “I actually only won two races in my whole career alone. And doing it here at the Tour de France, with this finish line, with this group in front – it was a super strong group – it’s just amazing.”

Pierre-Luc Périchon, a 32-year-old breakaway specialist on Cofidis, initially chased Trentin alone, but he couldn’t close the gap to less than 30 seconds. Then Kasper Asgreen, the young Deceuninck–Quick-Step time trialist, made his own solo effort, catching Périchon before the final descent but ultimately placing second on the stage, 37 seconds behind.

The chasers, who gradually fractured a bit on the slopes of the Sentinelle, finally crossed the line more than 40 seconds after Trentin. Greg Van Avermaet, the Belgian CCC rider who led the 2018 Tour for eight stages early on, finished at the front of this group and took third.

The peloton, meanwhile, stayed together and finished more than 20 minutes behind the stage leader. Teams had decided to let the breakaway escape so the overall favorites could save their energy for three hard days in the Alps, which will come before the Tour finale on the Champs-Élysées on Sunday.

Julian Alaphilippe stayed safely with the pack and will keep his yellow jersey for the ninth day in a row. Following him on the General Classification are five contenders who will likely challenge him for the win: returning champion Geraint Thomas (1:35 behind), Jumbo–Visma’s Steven Kruijswijk (1:47), Stage 14 winner Thibaut Pinot (1:50), Egan Bernal (2:02), and Emanuel Buchmann (2:14).

“It was a peaceful day, it did me good, [and] we reserved energy in this dreadful heat,” Alaphilippe said of Stage 17. “I’m ready for the Alps… My legs are tired, but in my mind I have never felt better.”

Bernal, Thomas’s 22-year-old old co-captain on Team Ineos, continues to lead the Best Young Rider competition by 13:31 over Frenchman David Gaudu. Tim Wellens, the Belgian all-rounder on Lotto–Soudal, stills wears the polka dot jersey as King of the Mountains. And Peter Sagan looks sure to win a record-breaking seventh green jersey, leading the Points Classification by 85 over Elia Viviani.

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