Tour de France 2020 – Soren Kragh Andersen wins again on Stage 19, Sam Bennett closes on green

It was double delight for Denmark's Soren Kragh Andersen at the Tour de France on Friday after the Sunweb rider soloed clear of a select move to take a second victory on Stage 19 at Champagnole. Sam Bennett all but secured the green jersey while there was no change at the top as Primoz Roglic retained the yellow jersey.

Kragh Andersen picked up his second Tour stage win in a week with an emphatic solo victory from a strong 12-man break after the rolling 166.5km stage into the Jura.

The Danish powerhouse surged clear of a move containing green jersey rivals Bennett, Peter Sagan and Matteo Trentin with 15km remaining. And with the chasers unable to join forces behind, the 26-year-old held on to secure his Sunweb team's third victory of the race.

Just as what happened in Stage 14 to Lyon, Slovenia's Luka Mezgec won the sprint for second place to finish Kragh Andersen's bridesmaid once again. The Mitchelton-Scott sprinter led home a Belgian trio of Jasper Stuyven, Greg van Avermaet and Oliver Naesen, with Kragh Andersen's teammate Nikias Arndt completing that group 53 seconds down and just ahead of Welshman Luke Rowe.

While Trentin (CCC Team) had made the attack which pre-empted Kragh Andersen's decisive move, the Italian came home behind Ireland's Bennett (Deceuninck-QuickStep) and Slovakia's Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) one minute in arrears after the trio marked each other out in the battle for green.

Bennett's eighth place means he extends his lead over both Sagan and Trentin in the points classification, effectively ending Sagan's forlorn quest to win an eighth green jersey in Paris. Barring disaster, Bennett will become the first Irishman since Sean Kelly in 1989 to win the Tour's fabled green jersey.

Behind, the peloton soft-pedalled to the line to finish almost eight minutes adrift as the GC favourites accepted a ceasefire ahead of the penultimate day's time trial on Saturday. Slovenia's Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) will enter the decisive 36.2km race against the clock with a 57-second lead over compatriot Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates), with Colombia's Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana) a further 30 seconds back in third.

Playing out on some leg-sapping terrain with almost 2,000 metres of climbing but just one fourth-category climb, Stage 19 was a bit of an enigma: a sprinters' stage which favoured a break, but had scope for an ambush, too.

With the green jersey battle delicately poised, Sagan's Bora-Hansgrohe's team were clearly eyeing a raid for their star man – although losing the Austrian Lukas Postlberger to a bee sting to the mouth early on hampered their efforts to pile the pressure on Deceuninck-QuickStep.

In the event, Bennett's team put a man ahead of the race, with Frenchman Remi Cavagana going clear after 15km and opening up a maximum lead of 2'30" over the pack as he came over the Cat.4 Cote de Chateau-Chalon.

One day after their one-two in the Alps, Ineos Grenadiers were chomping at the bit with Rowe, Dylan van Baarle and Stage 18 winner Michal Kwiatkowski all involved in attempts to bridge over. Rowe eventually zipped clear in pursuit of French duo Pierre Rolland and Benoit Cosnefroy as the road headed uphill on a long grind ahead of the intermediate sprint.

The trio went through the sprint after Cavagna before Bennett beat both Sagan and Trentin to the line to strengthen his grip on green. A counter move then formed as 14 riders came to the front of the race, but this came to nothing and the peloton swallowed up everyone ahead.

Rowe, Naesen and Jack Bauer then went clear with 30km to go, sparking the chase from Sagan, Bennett, Trentin and that man Kragh Andersen. Alert to the calibre of the riders ahead, a quintet of Mezgec, Stuyven, Arndt, van Avermaet and Dries Devenyns bridged over.

A chasing trio of Bryan Coquard, Hugo Hofstetter and Edvald Boasson Hagen tried to join the party, but the 12-man group had too much firepower, and as the peloton sat up, the gap pushed over three minutes.

With Bennett, Sagan and Trentin distracted by their separate battle for green jersey points, there was tension in the air as the break negotiated some twisting, rolling roads ahead of the finish. Trentin looked to have delivered a killer blow when he powered clear with 16km remaining – only for Kragh Andersen to use this as a springboard for his own decisive attack.

Riding as if Saturday's time trial had come a day early, the Dane got in the zone and extended his lead as his chasers bickered and hesitated behind. Stuyven led the chase but it was too late, the gap pushing one minute as the lone leader rolled into Champagnole.

Victory meant Kragh Andersen became the fourth rider to win two stages in the race after Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma), Caleb Ewan (Lotto Soudal) and Pogacar, the white jersey.

Bennett now holds a 55-point lead over Sagan in the green jersey competition, with Trentin a further 14 points back – and a total of 70 points up for grabs on the Champs-Elysees.

Before then, the small matter of that 36.2km time, which culminates with the 6km climb to La Planche des Belles Filles which should decide the outcome of the battle for yellow. Roglic remains the out-and-out favourite, but he missed out on the Slovenian national time trial championships to compatriot Pogacar, who will also have Richard Carapaz's polka dot jersey on his radar.