Richie fought his way into the front group after a ferocious start to the first great Alpine stage, made all of the right splits without wasting his strength, and took off on the final col. Richie attacked again and again. Once he was away, he soared. He braced himself against the pain, sitting, standing, and gritting his teeth, as he whirled all of his power into the pedals. Richie flew all the way to the summit and celebrated the victory that EF Education-EasyPost has been racing for since the very start of this Tour.

"It’s been a very special moment to win here at the Tour," Richard said. "It's something that you have to put absolutely everything into. I want to dedicate it to my family. This is the most important thing to me."

"It's incredible to win stage 18.
It was tricky. It was a very, very tough day. I was ready to jump across and worry when there was a gap but I managed to with three riders and I was able to jump into the first group.
It was a really tough climb. I waited for the right moment, and in the end, it just happened to be at the right time," he said.

Richie's teammates took up the challenge of getting him into the break with the same grit and spirit that they've shown since the Grand Départ in Barcelona, attacking again and again on the Côte d'Engins to try to get him away. When the squad missed a move over the summit of the first climb, Ben Healy, Georg Steinhauser, and Kasper Asgreen did huge turns on the front of the remains of the peloton to keep it in check. Richie tried to bridge across but was marked. On the Côte de Monteynard, he finally got away and powered to the front. Richie knew it was all going to come down to the final ascent, so he bided his time, collecting KOM points without sprinting hard, and made sure he got ahead of any splits in the break.

When he hit the foot of Orcières-Merlette, it was time for Richie to do what he does best. Richie waited for the steepest slopes and went. The Olympic champion launched an enormous attack and soared all the way to the summit, where he won in pure Richie style.

"[My stage win in 2024] that was a lot of battling and to get through it with this stage as well.
I would say they were both really tough, to be honest. It's really difficult to win at the Tour. We knew what we were coming here for.
We do what we had to do and today ended up being the special day. And we ultimately managed to accomplish what we had wanted for the last couple of weeks. We are really happy," Richie said.

Congratulations, Richie and the whole squad. This one means a lot.