148km to go Paret-Peintre makes the move to take the ten polkadot points on offer on Côte d’Engins, Carapaz gets eight. That result means Pogacar’s lead in the mountains classification is down to 14 points. That marker doesn’t signal the end of the climb, however. The road continues to go up for another 15km before the descent towards Varces-Allières-et-Risset.
150km to go We have a couple of EF Education First riders off the front, Sean Quinn and, unsurprisingly, Healy. They’ve been joined by Mauro Schmid of Jayco AlUla, who won stage 13. Their lead is 15 seconds, so the elastic hasn’t snapped yet.
155km to go The break is no more. The peloton has swallowed it up amid a series of attacks from the likes of Ben Healy, Richard Carapaz and Valentin Paret-Peintre.
158km to go And it has, the gap is down to 15secs. Interestingly two of UAE Team Emirates worker bees, Brandon McNulty and Adam Yates, are struggling at the back of the peloton. McNulty looked in rough shape during the stage presentation earlier. I don’t think this matters for Pogacar, he can handle himself, but Del Toro could do with a couple of lieutenants, especially if he’s not 100%.
161km to go The five riders up the road are Mathis le Berre (TotalEnergies), Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X Mobility), Nikolya Vinokurov, Aaron Gate (XDS Astana) and Lewis Askey (NSN). They managed to get 45secs on the main bunch but that is about to disappear rapidly.
174km to go Five riders have broken away and churned out a lead of around 20 seconds. That is unlikely to last when they hit Côte d’Engins shortly.
177km to go There are reports of illness in the UAE Team Emirates camp, Adam Yates has been struggling the last couple of days and now Isaac del Toro is said to be unwell. Given the stresses the Tour places on the body, in many ways it’s remarkable that 163 of the 184 riders are still going.
180km to go The peloton is gunning along at nearly 60km/h, no breakaway yet but the first climb is coming up fast so that won’t remain the case for long.
Kilometre zero
After little bit of a delay due to Cofidis’ Milan Fretin suffering a technical, Christian Prudhomme finally waves us off.
The riders are rolling out from Gap to kilometre zero. Flag drop due in 8km.
Yesterday was a big moment for stage winner Jasper Philipsen, the Alpecin–Premier Tech rider had finished in the top five in five sprints without winning one before stage 17, with the threatening to get away from him.
A second stage win for Alpecin–Premier Tech is probably par the course, given they do not have a GC contender and Philipsen has been bailed out to some degree by Mathieu van der Poel, who won stage nine. Van der Poel was on leadout services for Philipsen yesterday and duly delivered.
Asked by Reuters for his feelings at the stage finish in Voiron, Philipsen was very honest.
“It’s a relief,” Philipsen said. “It was a rollercoaster of emotions in this Tour de France. The first stages were just horrible, I couldn’t find myself, I couldn’t find the feeling I was hoping for.“
“I was just disappointed, angry that I couldn’t take a stage win,” the 28-year-old added.
“I didn’t find my feeling, the team had to deal with it.
“I just doubted myself. I did everything I could, we did amazing preparation with the team but I was just not myself.
“Was it because of the heat? It was really horrible. Was it something else? I don’t know, but I was not at the level I was hoping for.
“Mentally, it was a rollercoaster.“
Mads Pedersen’s lead in the green jersey race is down to just seven points, but Philipsen said “it will be very hard” to dethrone the Dane. Today is not the day for that, but it does add intrigue to the closing stages of a race where the GC battle is all-but over.
Here’s a visualisation of today’s parcours:
William Fotheringham's stage guide
Stage 19, Friday 24 July: Gap to l’Alpe d’Huez, 127.9km
This Tour’s most prestigious mountain stage finish; with a stage this short, it will be touch and go for the day’s escape to make it to the finish. That said, the opening 25km over the Cols Bayard and du Noyer are tough enough to allow a decent move to get established and then there are 60km until the Col d’Ornon, where Pogacar and Vingegaard will probably get their teams moving. If the big two give a move some leeway, the 21 hairpins to the finish will suit a pure climber such as Netcompany’s Thymen Arensman, a double stage winner last year.
Check out William Fotheringham’s full stage-by-stage guide:
Preamble
With the real quiz of Alpe d’Huez to come on Friday there will be a number of riders not named Tadej Pogacar who will fancy taking a prized stage win at Orcières today. Five climbs, but none in the hors category, means that this 185km stage will be brutal, but not quite as masochistic as others in the road book.
With the uphill road starting after just 20km, we will see splits early and opportunities for climbers such as Richard Carapaz and Valentin Paret-Peintre to get away. There are a maximum of 29 polkadot points on offer today, which could see those aforementioned riders move within range of Pogacar in the mountains classification standings should either secure a full house. Food for thought, at least until the race leader inevitably sets off for a solo victory up Alpe d’Huez tomorrow.
The battle for third on the podium is also a live concern. The French public will be roaring on Paul Seixas to beat Pogacar’s teammate Isaac del Toro over the last few days of the Tour. That contest has been given extra bite amid noise that the home hero is getting preferential treatment from doping control (a claim rejected by the authorities) by so far avoiding being woken in the middle of the night to provide a sample. A very Tour story, this one.
