Rafal Majka wins Tour's 17th stage









Giovanni Visconti got the action going on the last climb with a solo breakaway with about nine kilometers (5½ miles) left, but could not hold off Majka. Visconti, who also is Sicilian, was second, 29 seconds back, and Nibali was third, 46 seconds behind.


Majka said he felt "comfort" in the last five kilometers in part because he'd been saving up energy a day earlier by riding easier. He finished in a bunch 24½ minutes behind Australian teammate Michael Rogers, who won Stage 16.



Few know the scars of cycling's doping past more than Majka's own manager at the Tinkoff-Saxo Bank team, Bjarne Riis. Once a national hero in Denmark after winning the 1996 Tour, he admitted to using blood-booster EPO more than a decade later -- and was vilified for it. He laid low for a while, but then returned to the pro cycling world.


The echoes of doping resonated Wednesday on the grassy Pyrenean mountainside: The last times that Saint-Lary-Soulan hosted Tour stage finishes were in 2001 and 2005 -- won by Lance Armstrong and teammate George Hincapie. Those wins were later stripped because of doping. Their names have been crossed out in the official Tour history book.

Cycling has made great strides in fighting doping with enhanced blood and urine testing, along with the biological passport program, but few experts would claim that the peloton today is entirely clean.

Nibali, who has called himself a "flag-bearer of anti-doping", made his latest case to become the first Italian to win cycling's showcase race in 16 years -- since Marco Pantani, who was once convicted for doping.


The exception was Jean-Christophe Peraud of France, who hugged closely on the leader's back wheel and finished fourth. With his performance, the 37-year-old Frenchman made it an even closer race for the podium spots. He is fourth overall, 6:08 behind Nibali, but just eight seconds slower than fellow Frenchman Thibaut Pinot, in third.

American Tejay van Garderen, in sixth, also lost about a minute to Nibali and trails by 10:19. It came a day after his hopes for a podium spot were dealt a big blow when he lost several minutes to the other aspirants for a top-three finish in Paris.

"Yesterday was a pity, it was an off day," the BMC leader said. A podium spot is still possible, he added, "but it will be hard."

Stage 18's finale in the Pyrenees takes the pack on a 145.5-kilometer (90-mile) loop from Pau to Hautacam, featuring two ascents that are so hard that they defy cycling's ranking system -- one of them an uphill finish.

Then it's a flat stage heading northward Friday before an individual time-trial a day later, and then what's likely to be the largely ceremonial ride for the yellow jersey in Stage 21 on Sunday to the Champs-Elysees in Paris for the finish of the race's 101st edition.

While well-positioned to be in yellow then, Nibali was still attacking Wednesday.

"I preferred to go and gain a few more seconds and to be even more serene, just in case something could happen," he said.