ALPE D'HUEZ, France, July 25 (Reuters) - Ecuador's Richard Carapaz won the Tour de France's final mountain stage on Saturday, riding clear to victory in Alpe d'Huez after American Sepp Kuss crashed twice in the closing kilometres.
The EF Education-EasyPost rider completed the 170.9-km route from Le Bourg-d'Oisans to claim his second stage win in three days and secure the mountains classification.
"He showed perseverance. He just kept on going," Carapaz's sports director, Charlie Wegelius said.
"Kuss
obviously went once, managed to get him back, managed to get him the other time when he was just holding him, and clawing back a few seconds here and there. He just never gave up."
Carapaz and Kuss were part of an early breakaway that formed on the first of four major climbs of the day. The pair, along with Australia's Jai Hindley, emerged as the strongest riders from the group before Kuss attacked with 17 km remaining and opened up a small gap.
The Visma-Lease a Bike rider looked on course for victory but crashed in a tunnel and then again on a descent as Carapaz reeled him in and surged past.
Carapaz crossed the line 31 seconds clear of Kuss, who was overtaken in the closing metres by Belgium's Remco Evenepoel of Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe. Evenepoel finished second, 26 seconds behind the Ecuadorian, with Kuss taking third.
Race leader Tadej Pogacar safely negotiated the penultimate stage and is all but certain to claim a fifth Tour de France title on Sunday, holding a lead of more than seven minutes over Evenepoel.
Rather than chase a second successive stage win, the Slovenian spent much of the day supporting UAE Team Emirates-XRG teammate Isaac del Toro, who strengthened his grip on third place overall.
Del Toro finished fifth on the stage after dropping French teenager Paul Seixas on the Col de Sarenne.
Seixas, who had started the day just 24 seconds behind the Mexican in the battle for the final podium spot, faded to 10th and now trails Del Toro by 2:14 overall heading into Sunday's finale in Paris.
Sunday's stage has been shortened to 89km from the original 133km to allow security personnel to be redeployed to tackle wildfires near Bordeaux, organisers and police said.
(Reporting by Vincent Daheron; Writing by Karan Prashant Saxena in Bengaluru; editing by Clare Fallon)
