Alaphilippe wins on crazy day in Pyrenees
Here’s our report on today’s stage. Please tune in tomorrow, for what promises to be a very short and brutal stage with fireworks from the off. It’s only 65 kilometres in length, but straight uphill from the gun, with three very tough climbs.
The Top 15 on General Classification
After an extremely eventful day in the Pyrenees, here’s how things stand at the business end of the General Classification.
Geraint Thomas is zipped into yellow: The race leader is subjected to the usual abuse from the assembled throng, who were understandably more enthused by the French stage winner’s efforts.
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It’s been a heck of a day on Le Tour. A chaotic day began with myriad fruitless attacks off the front of the bunch, before the race the race was halted by a combination of protesting farmers chucking bales of hay on the road and over-zealous policemen wielding pepper-spray, which was accidentally blown into the faces of many riders.
After a 15-minute break, the race restarted and in the wake of more attacks, we finally got a 44-strong breakaway that eventually provided us with a stage winner in Julian Alaphilippe, who capitalised on an Adam Yates crash on the final descent to breast the tape for the second time in this Tour. Yates wasn’t the only rider to suffer a sickening fall today - Philippe Gilbert skidded on a corner before hitting a wall and being catapulted into a ravine, from which he was safely extricated.
Geraint Thomas stays in yellow
The Welshman finishes the stage safely, surrounded by his team-mates. It’s been a cracking day’s cycling entertainment in which Frenchman Julian Alaphilippe has won his second stage of this year’s Tour.
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Nearly there for Geraint Thomas: The Welshman, Froome, Roglic, Martin, Quintana and all the other GC contenders are going to finish together.
Back in the yellow jersey/GC group: They have 5.1km to go as they continue their descent. Egan Bernal leads the Sky train down at 71km-per-hour, with Chris Froome in third place and Geraint Thomas in fourth. Getting home safely is the plan.
Julian Alaphilippe wins the stage
The French Quick Step-Floors rider wins the stage after a great performance. The winning time? 5hr 13min 22sec. It’s been a very eventful day and certainly not one he’ll forget in a hurry. Gorkla Izagirre finishes second and Adam Yates finishes third after falling while in the lead and with the stage at his mercy on the final descent.
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1km to go: Julian Alaphilippe of Quick Step-Floors passes under the flamme rouge signifying one kilometre to go. He’d looked cooked on the way up that final climb, but takes advantage of Adam Yates’s misfortune to win the stage with the polka-dot jersey on his shoulders.
4km to go: Alaphilippe is more than 200 metres clear of Adam Yates, who is now cornering like I would on the same descent. He’d looked great until the cash, zooming downhill and taking corners at speeds of 70km-per-hour. Now his confidence looks understandably shot after sliding and coming a cropper on a stretch of wet road.
5.6km to go: Julian Alaphilippe continues his descent, looking behind him to see where Adam Yates is. The Englishman’s confidence, understandably, seems to have taken a serious knock after that fall.
ADAM YATES IS DOWN!!! Yates overcooks a corner, possibly on a wet patch of road and hits the desk. Julian Philippe takes over the lead, with Yates back on his bike and following him.
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8km to go: It’s all downhill, it’s technical and barring an accident the stagewin will go to leader Adam Yates or his pursuer, Julian Alaphilippe. It’s a fairly narrow, winding road lined by ditches and trees.
Paul Griffin writes on a great day’s racing: “So we have a furnace of a day, an horrifically rapid first hour, an agricultural protest escalating into a tear gas attack and a rider cast into a ravine before the hardest climbs,” he says. “And tomorrow will be worse. And the Sky GC gunfight still to come. This is marvellously sadistic. Some of these chaps have a reasonable case for deserving a second macaroon if - if - they make it to the end.”
Adam Yates will certainly be making it to the end - he was first over the summit of Col Du Portillon with a 25 second lead, but has Julian Alaphilippe in hot, hot pursuit as they begin the descent. Can Yates hold his nerve?
11km to go: Having signed a new contract with Mitchelton-Scott yesterday, Adam Yates leads the stage by a little over 30 seconds with one kilometre of climbing left to go in today’s stage. He’s had a disappointing Tour in terms of GC, but a stage win would go a long way towards rewarding his team’s faith in them.
14km to go: Mollema, Gesink and Pozzovivo lead the stag, but are joined by Yates, Izaguire and Soler. Yates attacks and opens a gap with a little under half the climb remaining.
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14km to go: Behind the stage leaders, the yellow jersey/GC group hit the foot of the climb with Movistar putting the hammer down.
15km to go: Movistar go to the front of the yellow jersey/GC group. with Sky lined up behind them. Further up the road, Robert Gesink and Domenico Pozzovivo lead the stage. The road is wet as they climb and they have four-and-a-half kilometres to go to the top, before the tricky descent to the finish-line.
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17km to go: Rudy Molard (Groupama–FDJ) and Michael Valgren (Astana) attack off the front of the leading group, but are immediately reeled in. The winner of today’s stage will come from this 15-man bunch, who are now 9min 25sec clear of the yellow jersey/GC group. Pierre Latour is the best placed rider in the smaller bunch on GC, over 17 minutes behind Geraint Thomas.
17.6km to go: Warren Barguil is first to be dropped from the group of leaders. The Team Fortunea-Samsic rider’s face is a mask of pain as he tries desperately to cling on, but he’s going backwards.
19km to go: While Movistar do the towing at the front of the yellow jersey/GC group, our 17-man group of leaders continue their journey onwards and upwards to the stage finish at Bagnere’s-de-Luchon.
24km to go: It’s as you were in the last post, with the 17-man group comprising some excellent climbers on their way to the final climb of the day. Latour, Caruso, Yates, Barguil, Pozzovivo, Alaphilippe and Gesink are among the bigger names who’ll be duking it out at the finish. The yellow jersey group remains 11min 05sec behind them.
30km to go: A group of 17 riders lead the yellow jersey/GC group by 12min 08sec with six other riders on the road between them. Sky have seven riders lined up at the front of that particular yellow jersey group. There are six riders together on the road in between these two particular groups with one Cat 1 climb to go. Poor old Arnaud Demare is fully 29min 35sec off the pace being set by the race leaders and on his own in a one-man grupetto.
How things stand: With 39 kilometres and one climb to go, Julian Alaphilippe and Gregor Mühlberger are descending the Col de Mente. They have a lead of about 10 seconds over a 10-man group comprising Damiano Caruso, Pierre Latour, Bauke Mollema, Adam Yates and Robert Gesink, among others. The yellow jersey/main GC group is 11min 43sec behind the two stage leaders.
How the Col de Mente points were won
1. Julian Alaphilippe 10
2. Bauke Mollema 8
3. Damiano Caruso 6
4. Domenico Pozzovivo 4
5. Robert Gesink 2
6. Pierre Latour 1
47km to go: Caruso and Gesink continue to lead the way up Col de Mente, but are passed by Julian Alaphilipe in the KOM polka-dot jersey, who goes over the top in first place. He secures himself 10 more points in the quest for that jersey.
Another email. “Regarding all the extra staff and extra musettes Sky have, do you have anything to back that up?” asks James Cole. “I have ‘more than a passing interest’ in cycling but have never really thought about the size of Sky’s extended staff so I am curious if it is just an assumption that they spend their money this way, or you have actual figures for Sky’s staffing levels at this race compared to other teams.”
Em, they habitually place staff on the road to hand out musettes outside feeding stations, while most other teams’ domestiques are forced to waste valuable energy going back to the team car for the same refreshments. This is not an assumption, it is a fact. It is also a fact that was confirmed minutes ago on TV by Nicolas Roche, a former Sky rider. But what would he know about such matters compared to assorted “fanboys” writing in to complain (not you, I hasten to add - your query seems reasonable) who aren’t even prepared to concede that Team Sky are wealthy?
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51km to go: Damiano Caruso and Robert Gesink drop Warren Barguil on the climb up the Col de Mente, the penultimate and most difficult climb of the day. Behind them, the field is thinning out - a group that once comprised 46 riders has been halved. Behind those guys, the yellow jersey/GC group is 10min 35sec behind the two stage leaders and being towed along by the poor church-mice of Sky.
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An email from Adam Hirst: “I had one of those back-wheel wobbles coming down a long, steep curving road the other day, in amongst the traffic,” he says. “I didn’t even need to fall off for it to shake me up quite a bit. How the pros get back on their bikes and carry on almost regardless after a spill like that, or Thomas head-butting a lamp-post, is absolutely beyond me. I think it probably shook me up watching more than Phil Gil.”
53km to go: With Philippe Gilbert gone off the front, Damiano Caruso, Warren Barguil and Robert Gesink have taken over at the head of the race and are making their way up the Cat 1 Col De Mente. They’re 17 seconds ahead of the polka-dot jersey group and 10 minutes clear of the yellow jersey group. Philippe Gilbert, who appears to have injured his arm, is somehwere between the two main groups.
An email: On the subject of Sky’s impromptu feed zone, which I mentioned earlier, Marie Meyer writes: “Seriously, Barry?” she says. “Other teams thought about stationing a guy by the side of the road with some musettes, but then ruled it out on the basis of cost? The Guardian’s Sky Derangement Syndrome is showing.”
Ha-ha! Well, the thing is, Marie, you need staff to prepare, pack and hand out musettes. And those staff have to be paid wages. And most teams don’t have anywhere near as many staff as Sky to do the job, because they don’t have as much money as Sky to pay those wages. This is common knowledge to anyone with a passing interest in cycling, not derangement.
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Philippe Gilbert has been extricated: The race medics pull Gilbert out from the countryside and after sitting on that wall he went over a couple of minutes ago to catch his breath, he climbs back on his bike and continues his descent. He’s a lucky, lucky boy.
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Philippe Gilbert crashes!!! Gilbert’s back wheel locks on his decent and he crashes into a low wall, before flying head first over his handlebars and into a ravine. We can’t tell how far the drop on the other side is, but fingers crossed he’ll be OK.
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62.5km to go: Philippe Gilbert crests the summit of the Col de Portet-d’Aspet with a lead of a minute over the group behind him. Wearing the polka-dot jersey, Julian Alaphilipe is next over, narrowly beating Warren Barguil.
63km to go: Philippe Gilbert continues his lone climb to the Cat 2 Col de Portet-d’Aspet. The best placed rider on GC in the group behind him is Pierre Latour (AG2R La Mondiale), in the white jersey for best young rider and in 14th place overall. He’s 17min 28sec behind Geraint Thomas.
65km to go: Quick Step’s Philippe Gilbert continues his ascent with a lead of a minute over a chasing posse of 46 riders, that is in turn 9min 20sec clear of the yellow jersey/GC group. Behind them, Arnaud Demare is a further eight minutes back and pedalling forlornly on his own.
67km to go: Quick Step rider Philippe Gilbert has gone clear of the leading group, opening a gap of around 30 seconds as he ploughs a lone furrow up the Col de Portet-d’Aspet. Behind him the 46 riders of what was the leading group have an advantage of 8min 20sec over the yellow jersey/GC group.
71km to go: Here’s the day’s next climb, the Col de Portet-d’Aspet, as the 47 riders in the leading group approach it. Their lead over the yellow jersey group containing the main GC contenders is 8min 32sec.
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73.7km to go: Sky set up an impromptu feed zone ahead of the day’s first significant climb, handing out musettes containing bidons and assorted edible treats to their riders. It seems to be a luxury other teams with smaller budgets cannot afford to resource so soon after the official feeding station, as no other riders are being fed.
76km to go: For the leaders, that is. Arnaud Démare has been dropped from the yellow jersey group and is now over 14 minutes off the pace being set by the stage leaders.
82km to go: There’s a little under 20km to go to the summit of the first of today’s three significant climbs, the Col de Pont-d’Aspet. Our leading group of 47 riders are nearly seven minutes clear of the yellow jersey group and all the GC big-hitters contained within it.
Intermediate sprint revisited: For what it’s worth to him, it transpires that Christophe Laporte edged it, nicking maximum points from under the nose of Edvaldo Boasson Hagen.
88km to go: Sky continue to control the pace in the yellow jersey group, which is now 6min 08sec behind the large group of leaders.
Intermediate sprint: Edvald Boasson Hagen wins the intermediate sprint from Christophe Laporte and Greg Van Avermaet. Meanwhile back in the yellow jersaey group, Sky have taken control at the front as the ridfers begin the sweeping climp to the Cat 2 Col de Portet-d’Aspet.
95km to go: With one kilometre to go to what promises to be a completely inconsequential intermediate sprint, the leading group is now out to a perfectly manageable 47 riders.
For the record, they are: Simon Clarke (EF Education First), Silvan Dillier, Matthias Fränk and Pierre Latour (AG2R-La Mondiale), Simon Geschke, Soren Kragh and Edward Theuns (Team Sunweb), Warren Barguil, Maxime Bouet, Romain Hardy, Amäel Moinard and Laurent Pichon (Fortuneo-Samsic), Gorka Izagirre, Ion Izagirre and Domenico Pozzovivo (Bahrain-Merida), Adam Yates and Matthew Hayman (Mitchelton-Scott), Andrey Amador, Daniele Bennati and Marc Soler (Movistar Team), Damiano Caruso, Greg van Avermaet and Tejay Van Garderen (BMC Racing Team), Kristijan Durasek (UAE Team Emirates), Julian Alaphilippe and Philippe Gilbert (Quick-Step Floors), Marcus Burghardt and Gregor Mühlberger (Bora-Hansgrohe), Magnus Cort and Michael Valgren (Astana), Edvald Boasson Hagen, Tom-Jelte Slagter and Julien Vermote (Team Dimension Data), Nils Politt (Katusha-Alpecin), Rudy Molard (Groupama-FDJ), Robert Gesink (LottoNL-Jumbo), Jelle Vanendert (Lotto-Soudal), Thomas Boudat (Direct Energie), Bauke Mollema, Julien Bernand, Koek de Kort and Jasper Stuyven (Trek-Segafredo), Christophe Laporte, Nicolas Edet and Dani Navarro (Cofidis), Marco Minaard and Guillaume Martin (Wanty-Groupe Gobert).
Stand-out names highlighted for your reading convenience. Pierre Latour is in the white jersey, while Julian Alaphilippe is wearing the polka-dot equivalent.
97km to go: The gap is out to 5min 26sec.
105km to go: The gap between the 44 leaders and the yellow jersey peloton stretches to 4min 51sec as the riders in both attend to their ablutions and stock up on grub after a hectic morning’s racing. Fortuneo-Samsic have five riders in the leading group, including Warren Barguil. He will be hoping for the stage win and also wants to relieve Julian Alaphilippe of the polka-dot jersey over the next couple of days.
108km to go: The race has finally settled. Adam Yates (Mitchelton-Scott), Greg Van Avermaet (BMC), Damiano Caruso (BMC), Warren Barguil (Fortuneo-Samsic), Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo), Tejay van Garderen, Julian Alaphilippe (Quick-Step), Jon Izaguirre Insausti (Bahrain-Merida) and Robert Gesink (LottoNL-Jumbo) are among the bigger names in the group of 44 riders who have opened a gap of 3min 28sec on the yellow jersey bunch.
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WE HAVE A BREAKAWAY!!! Relief in the peloton as 44 riders put over a minute between themselves and the bunch containing the yellow jersey.
117km to go: A group of 27 riders open a gap on the bunch, but it quickly closes again. Greg van Avermaet, Damiano Caruso, Warren Barguil, Bauke Mollema, Tejay van Garderen, Julian Alaphilippe and Jon Izaguirre Insausti are among the bigger names trying (and for the time being failing) to put some distance between themselves and the yellow jersey.
Today’s intermediate sprint: It’s in Saint-Girons, 94 kilometres from home. If Peter Sagan can finish in the top seven and Alexander Kristoff doesn’t get any points, Sagan will guarantee himself this year’s green jersey. Sagan is currently in the peloton, while Kristoff has been dropped.
123km to go: The bunch reassembles, but remains strung out after reeling in Caruso. I don’t know about the riders, but I’m mentally shattered trying to keep up with everything’s that gone on so far today. A quick reminder: we have three big climbs (a Cat 2 and two Cat 1s) left today and the riders won’t hit the summit of the first one until 62.5km from home.
This just in: Here’s more on the farmers’ protest that led to a 15-minute delay in today’s stage, as several riders were forced to wash their eyes out.
128km to go: BMC rider Damiano Caruso opens a gap of 14 seconds on the front of the bunch, which is being led by Warren Barguil. Movistar and Sunweb also have riders near the front, forcing a brutal pace.
130km to go: Having split earlier, the peloton is now back together but seriously strung out, with gaps visible from the overhead helicopter shots. Rider after rider is attacking off the front in an attempt to ramp up the pressure on Sky.
Tim Declercq watch: Having struggled all morning, the Quick-Step rider has finally thrown in the towel before the race hits today’s seriously lumpy stuff. Alexander Kristoff and Arnaud Demare are currently being dropped by the yellow jersey group.
Some lunchtime reading: I’ll be back in five minutes - here’s hoping we don’t have any more incidents of gendarmes spraying themselves in the face while I’m away.
144km to go: Julian Alaphilippe leads the charge over the second climb of the day, the Cat 4 Cote de Pamiers. The peloton is currently split in two groups that are both strung out in single file. The first group is comprised of 28 riders and contains potential stage winners Adam Yates and Alejandro Valverde. Sky have Michal Kwiatkowski and Egan Bernal there to keep an eye on them.
Behind them in the second group, we have Geraint Thomas, Chris Froome and the rest of Sky’s remaining riders, who will presumably be content to shut things down and let the breakaway go clear.
148km to go: Mitchelton-Scott tow the bunch along, presumably in an effort to get Adam Yates into the breakaway and into contention for the stage. They already have Daryl Impey in the escape party, but he simply isn’t going to win this stage. The peloton are going to be mentally and physically drained by all this racing they’ve had to deal with already today. Bear in mind, they don’t hit the difficult part of this stage for for another 80 kilometres or so. And here is the story about the protest earlier.
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152km to go: It’s stopped raining and an eight-man breakaway have a lead of 30 seconds over the peloton.
They are: Warren Barguil (Fortuneo-Samsic), Daryl Impey (Mitchelton-Scott), Julien Bernard (Trek-Segafredo), Julian Alaphilippe (Quick-step Floors), Rudy Molard (FDJ), Michael Valgren (Astana), Nils Politt (Kastusha-Alpecin), Gregor Muhlberger (Bora–Hansgrohe).
157km to go: Warren Barguil (Fortuneo-Samsic), Daryl Impey (Mitchelton-Scott), Julien Bernard (Trek-Segafredo) and Julian Alaphilippe (Quick-step Floors) have a lead of 26 seconds over the yellow jersey group, but there’s a small gang of four more riders about to join them. That’ll make a nice group of eight riders which could become the break of the day.
158km to go: Tim Declercq watch: the Belgian Quick-Step rider remains a picture of suffering at the back of the peloton and has been struggling badly all day. With the bunch moving so fast, he’ll be hoping against hope a breakaway will get away soon, so the pack he’s desperately trying to stay in touch with will finally slow down a bit.
162km to go: More attacks off the front, with Warren Barguil and Daryl Impey, Julien Bernard and Julian Alaphilippe opening a small gap. Barguil has his eye on the polka-dot jersey that currently adorns the shoulders of Alaphilippe. THere’s some quality in that breakaway group, if they can stay away. The gap is 18 seconds at the moment, but the peloton seem understandably reluctant to let them go.
165km to go: The rain continues to pour down as the riders negotiate the flat on the way to the next climb of the day, the Cat 4 Cote de Pamiers. There are three more summits to negotiate after that, but they won’t hit the first of those until 62.5 kilometres from the finish.
170km to go: The bunch is back together after the four-man breakaway fails to break the elastic separating them from bunch. Meanwhile up on in the sky, the heavens have opened and it’s hammering down with rain. It’s just one bit of excitement after another today.
174km to go: Our four-man breakaway are now 21 seconds clear of the bunch, which has reeled in Chavanel. There will be a lot of team directors unhappy that they haven’t got men in this breakaway, that will do well to stay clear. The peloton behind them is very strung out.
178km to go: Stefan Kung (BMC), Rafal Majka (Bora Hansgrohe), Franco Pellizotti (Bahrain-Merida) and Andrea Pasqualon (Wanty Groupe-Grober) have opened a lead of 17 seconds or so on the peloton, where Sylvain Chavanel has jumped off the front and is trying to bridge the gap.
183km to go: The flag drops again and racing begins again. None of the riders appear to be showing any adverse affects of having a policeman’s pepper spray blow back in their face.
This, from the internet: “Pepper spray causes non-lethal inflammation of all mucous membranes in the eyes, nose, mouth and lungs. Causes eyes to slam shut from intense burning and temporary blindness. The effects will last from 30 minutes to two hours. Antidotes for pepper spray include milk and Dawn.”
187km to go: The riders begin another roll-out and will be controlled at a sedate pace for another few kilometres behind the race director’s car. The riders still haven’t been told over race radio that they were “attacked” by an over-enthusiastic policeman who didn’t factor the breeze – and where it might blow his pepper spray – into manner in which he decided to deal with an angry farmer. They’ll no doubt take some consolation from the fact that the dopey gendarme also gave himself a good blast of the stinging stuff in the face.
187km to go: ITV4’s commentary team of Ned Boulting and David Millar have revealed that it was indeed a French policeman who has accidentally sprayed several cyclists with pepper spray while trying to restrain a protestor who was trying to throw hay-bales into the path of the peloton. Confusion continues to reign in the bunch, however, where the riders have no idea what the hell is going on.
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187km to go: The race remains at a standstill and race radio has yet to explain exactly what is going on. A Dutch TV station who has a motorbike following the race are reporting that somebody - it seems to have been a policeman - has sprayed pepper spray in the face of a protester and managed to hit half the peloton while he was at it.
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187km to go: The race has been stopped and now there are stories emerging that some of the riders may have been attacked with pepper spray. The peloton is currently at a standstill behind the race organisers’ cars, with some riders still washing out their eyes with the contents of their bidons, while others are going back to their team cars for medical treatment. Those who seem unaffected by whatever it is that has happened are going back to their cars for food and taking comfort breaks at the side of the road.
187km to go: Christian Prudhomme neutralises the race as there’s some sort of protest on the side of the road. There are riders stopped on either side of the road washing out their eyes with water after what appears to be bales of hay were thrown on the road by farmers. On TV, there is some suggestion among the commentators that fertiliser might have been sprayed at the peloton as it passed. More news as we get it.
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193km to go: The peloton are on the first climb of the day, the Cat 4 Cote de Fanjeaux and Warren Barguil from Fortuneo-Samsic is first over the top to get the point on offer for the King of the Mountains classification. Behind him, Tim De Clercq remains in all sorts of bother as he struggles to stay in touch with the back of the bunch.
197km to go: Direct Energie launch another attack off the front, as do Katusha-Alpecin, who are down to just four riders. Nils Politt is their man with the bit between his teeth, but is quickly reeled in. Katusha rider Marcel Kittel, who left this year’s Tour after missing the time cut on Stage 11 to La Rosiere, has been forced to come out and say that he will not be leaving a team reported to be in turmoil after just one year. Kittel was the subject of criticism from his new Directeur Sportif Dimitri Konyshev, who called him selfish and “egotistical”.
“Just because someone has an opinion of me which I don’t like doesn’t mean to me the world is ending,” said Kittel in an interview with Sport1.de. “Ok, the way it is communicated is another matter. People can have different opinions, but it should all be done within the team.In the end it is an individual opinion, I am not going to hold it against the whole team. Afterwards I had good discussions with the other guys in the team, that is important to me. I believe that we have straightened up things between us.” Time trial specialist Tony Martin is also rumoured to be unhappy with life at Team Katusha-Alpecin.
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199km to go: Spare a thought for Tim De Clercq, the Quick-Step rider who is already struggling at the back of the peloton. Whatever about us, it looks like it’s certainly going to be a long day for him.
201km to go: The bunch continues to roll along with occasional unsuccessful attacks being launched off the front. It’s going to be a long old day, so if you want to get in touch with their thoughts on today’s stage, the Tour in general or anything else that takes your fancy, feel free to do exactly that.
204km to go: The bunch reacts to the three-man attack and reels them in.
205km to go: A group of three riders have opened a gap of a few seconds on the peloton, from where several other riders are trying to jump across. Lotto-Soudal’s Thomas De Gendt, Direct Energie’s Jerome Cousin and Wanty Groupe-Gobert’s Guillaume Van Keirsbulck are the men in the escape party.
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211km to go: With five kilometres behind them, the riders at the front of the bunch are monitoring each other closely as early attacks are launched. Nobody has launched a successful breakaway just yet.
Christian Prudhomme waves his flag: Racing begins in earnest on stage 18, with riders from Lotto Soudal, Mitchelton Scott and Direct Energie launching early attacks. Mitchelton-Scott rider Damien Howson has been confirmed as a late non-starter today after succumbing to a fractured bone in his right hand. The field is now down to 148 and just six teams have their full complement of eight riders each.
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The roll-out has begun: There are six stages left in this year’s Tour (well, five plus Sunday’s procession into Paris) and before being given the signal to start racing, the riders have begun this morning’s procession out of the beautiful fortified city of Carcassonne, which movie buffs may remember as the setting for the 1991 Kevin Costner vehicle Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. There are 149 riders left in the race out of the 176 who started, with seven complete teams of eight remaining.
Nico Portal speaks: In an interview on Eurosport, Sky’s directeur sportif was asked how the absence of Gianni Moscon would affect the team for the rest of the week. “Quite a lot, like we said,” he said. “We’re coming into the third week of the Tour and quite a lot of them short. We have this spot left free every day and the guys are going to work that little bit harder to cover his workload.”
Brailsford demands respect
Team Sky boss David Brailsford was in typically ebullient and self-aware form yesterday, condemning the Tour organisers for not doing more to protect his riders and backroom staff from the roadside abuse of spectators, which obviously should not be condoned.
“It’s interesting that we’ve just done the Tour of Italy and Chris’s case was open and the Italians were fantastic, and the Spanish the same,” said Brailsford, apparently oblivious to the abuse aimed at Froome during the Giro. “It just seems to be a French cultural thing.”
Brailsford’s comments came less than 24 hours after one of his own team’s riders, Gianni Moscon, had been chucked off the race for apparently swinging a punch at a rider from another team. Moscon has previously been suspended for racially abusing a fellow rider in the peloton. Never change, Dave.
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General Classification: the top 10
Geraint Thomas continues to lead the Tour, while his team-mate, the defending champion Chris Froome, trails in second place by 1min 39sec. Upon being asked yesterday if he would be prepared to sacrifice his ambitions of a record-equalling fifth Tour win to help Thomas reach the top step of the podium in Paris on Sunday, Froome said “yes”.
Carcassonne-Bagnéres de Luchon (218km)
From William Fotheringham’s stage-by-stage guide: After the second rest day, the final week opens with a lengthy run in to the Pyrénées and three short steep climbs, the last, the Col du Portillon, just 10km from the finish. The winner should come from the early escape - a climber such as David Gaudu or Pello Bilbao - while the elite group of overall contenders are liable to watch and wait with tomorrow in mind.
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