On his tenth Tour de France, Wout Poels soloed to his first-ever Grand Tour stage win atop Saint-Gervais Mont-Blanc on stage 15 of the Tour de France. The 35-year-old Dutch rider added his dream to his Palmares, which includes a monument win at Liège Bastogne Liège in 2016. 

Poels joined the day’s breakaway with a group of over 30 riders, including teammate Mikel Landa and with around 50km to go, Poels followed Van Aert (Jumbo Visma) to latch on an earlier move made by Soler (UAE) on Col des Aravis. As the three closed in on the penultimate climb, Côtes des Amerands, Poels launched his attack leaving Van Aert behind and soloing to victory securing Team Bahrain Victorious’ second stage win at this year’s Tour de France.

Poels, in disbelief, commented: “I always dreamed to win a stage at the Tour. I won a Monument and now a stage in the Tour. When you are young, you dream of it, look at all the people watching on tv and at the side of the road. The Tour is the Tour.

I’ve had great memories at this race; this is my tenth. I’ve always worked for people, so it’s incredible to have my chance and achieve this dream. Yesterday I tried, and we didn’t manage to get much time, but today I went all in again. In the beginning, I wasn’t happy the group was so big, but we kept going, and I just had to follow the right moves, and when I saw Van Aert following Soler on the downhill, I knew that was my ticket. 

I wanted to enjoy it in the last kilometre, but it was really steep, so I really kept going to the line, and what a hard stage to win. It’s been a rollercoaster of emotions for the team in the last month, and I still can’t believe it. It’s special to achieve this in honour of Gino.”

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