Key events
156km to go My inbox is open for your emails today. I had a lot of incredible submissions when I tried this earlier this week, so let’s go for it again: send me your favourite Tour de France memories. I’d love to hear your stories of watching either on the side of the road, mountain or on your sofa, just a meaningful moment. The email is in the link at the top of the page.
157km to go Barguil and Steinhauser have pulled clear, but Abrahmsen is on their tail. The peloton is not far back, just 33secs. The riders are on the first of four categorised climbs today, this is one of three hors category mountains in today’s road book. The Col de la Croix de Fer is 24km at an average of 5.2%, but much of it steeper than that. It looks bloody tough.
What’s happened so far…
Playing catch-up a little on today’s stage (my bad, folks), six riders went away after three kilometres, one of those, Baptiste Veistroffer of Lotto Intermarche, has already fallen back, but Joris Delbove (TotalEnergies), Jonas Abrahmsen (Uno-X Mobility), Warren Barguil (Picnic PostNL), Xabier Azparren (Pinarello-Q36.5) and Georg Steinhauser (EF Education-EasyPost) remain out in front albeit they’re now fragmenting.
Here’s what the riders are tackling:
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William Fotheringham’s stage guide
William Fotheringham
Stage 20, Saturday 25 July: Le Bourg d’Oisans to l’Alpe d’Huez, 170.9km
Up the Alpe for a second time in two days, but this finish uses the barely used back way up the narrow and equally tough Col de Sarenne, defying protests from local ecologists concerned at the race passing through an environmentally sensitive area. The Sarenne is preceded by the classic Alpine super category double whammy of the Croix de Fer and Galibier, making this the hardest stage of the Tour, potentially decisive for the overall or, assuming Pogacar and Vingegaard have an iron grip on the race, at least a final reshuffle of the standings before Paris.
Preamble
I imagine when the course designers drew up today’s stage they were pretty happy with themsleves, a brutal test that would shake out a worthy winner of the Tour de France. It’s quite a Giro-esque approach. What they should have accounted for was a race a long since over as a contest. Tadej Pogacar’s descimation of Alpe d’Huez (part one) confirmed what we all knew weeks ago, he has no challengers.
What we are left with is a monster of a stage, 170.9km of almost wall-to-wall climbing, where the yellow jersey has said his focus is helping to secure the young rider’s classification for his teammate, Isaac del Toro. Whether you to choose to believe that Pogacar will pass up the opportunity for another stage win is up to you, but this is not the duel we were promised.
However, for Paul Seixas and the French public a rider on the podium would be something to cherish so there is at least some jeopardy to be rung from this year’s Tour.
Richard Carapaz will also be an animating figure. He is in the polkadots now after finishing third yesterday and he has said that his goal is to hang on them. Pogacar looms large here too.
For Pogacar surely the next thing on his checklist at the Tour de France is Lance Armstrong’s unofficial record of seven titles and passing Mark Cavendish’s record tally of stage victories will fall as a consequence.
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