Key events

1h ago Paret-Peintre collects extra polka-dot points!
2h ago Paret-Peintre assumes the mountains jersey lead
2h ago Kilometre zero reached
3h ago William Fotheringham provides stage preview
3h ago Opening remarks

39km to go The intermediate sprint nears and Lidl-Trek form up to help Mads Pedersen claim his 25 points.

I’ve received a note from colleague Luke McLaughlin that leaves me envious: “I Just rode up the Col du Glandon, came back to try and access the race route from Allemond, but they’ve recently closed the road. Heading back to hotel (well, one-star ski chalet) now to dump bike, then going to try and get a cable car from Oz station to the top instead to watch the finish. I think I recognised the bit where Warren Barguil nearly hit some cows during a rapid descent about 10 years ago!”

And here I am sat on the sofa. Chapeau, Luke.

50km to go I think we’re seeing the impact of a reduced UAE Team Emirates XRG here. Pogacar’s teammates have been riding hard on the front of the peloton but up ahead are a lot of mini-team groups who are motivated to pull away.

57km to go The gap keeps growing, perhaps they heard the TNT team. The lead group has more than four minutes now.

65km to go Have the peloton eased off a little here? The gap is growing to the lead group. It’s now 3mins 45secs.

75km to go Marco Haller (Tudor) narrowly avoids a nasty looking crash into a large concrete bollard. He still got tangled up in the safety padding as he went down, having clipped the wheel in front.

80km to go Adam Blythe on TNT reckons the break needs a five-minute lead to prevent Pogacar from powering off to take the stage. UAE Team Emirates XRG are working away on the front of the peloton and the gap is not being allowed much beyond 3min 20secs.

90km to go The riders are on the long descent down Col du Noyer, the large lead group have a lead of 3min 30secs. The next stop is the intermediate sprint, which comes at 38.6km to go. Mads Pedersen is in lead group and should add to his lead in the green jersey standings there.

More polka-points for Paret-Peintre!

Carapaz stuck with Paret-Peintre all the way but the Frenchman held on to take the ten points on offer. Carapaz is now second in the mountains classification rankings, Pogacar third.

102km to go Paret-Peintre attacks in search of the mountains points and Carapaz goes with him. The polkadot jersey has gone early here, some 200m to go.

105km to go The road is very narrow on the climb, barely more than a car’s width, and the riders are snaked back in a line with the mountains in the backdrop. Gorgeous.

106km to go The breakaway is getting a bit more rope now. The lead is up over two minutes, it can’t stay this big for too long, can it? I’m sure some will drop back but at some point we’ll see attacks off the front too.

109km to go The lead group has just hit the official start of the category one Col du Noyer. This one is 7.2km at an average of 8.5%. The peloton is only letting the break have a 1min 30secs lead at the moment, with Red Bull Bora-Hangrohe and UAE Team Emirates XRG controlling the front.

114km to go Adam Yates is clearly feeling better, he’s in the big lead group. They’re currently 1min 10secs ahead of the main bunch.

119km to go Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious), who is currently seventh in the GC standings, has snuck into the big lead group ahead of the peloton. Lidl-Trek have the two riders ahead of the Frenchman in the top ten, will they work to bring thing back?

Paret-Peintre takes the lead in the mountains classification

The Soudal Quick-Step rider has the sprint to beat Richard Carapaz at the top of the climb and takes the first five polkadot points of the day. Paret-Peintre has overtaken Pogacar at the top of the standings, for now.

124km to go A very large group has moved clear of the peloton, there are 42 riders in there but none of the main GC contenders.

125km to go The peloton is already being watered down as the sprinters drop off the back. The four-man break has been neutralised.

126km to go Sean Quinn, Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost), Derek Gee (Lidl-Trek) and Tobias Johannessen (Uno-X Mobility) have attacked. They haven’t pulled away by much, mind.

127km to go No rest for the wicked, we’re straight on to the category Col Bayard, a 4.8km drag at 7.2%.

Kilometre zero

There’s Christian Prudhomme popping out of the sunroof and waving his little yellow flag, we’re off.

The peloton is on the move, next stop kilometre zero.

Pogacar is in black shorts, repeat black shorts.

We’re a couple of minutes away from the rollout in Gap.

There are no reports that Pogacar is feeling any ill-effects today but it remains to be seen how fit the rest of his UAE Team Emirates XRG are. This could be mind games, but Paul Seixas turned up for the stage presentation in a medical mask. Luke Rowe, Decathlon’s sporting director, has just popped up on TNT predicting an explosive start to the stage, it seems the peloton smells blood.

Tour de France worries emerge for Pogacar after illness sweeps through team

Richard Carapaz won stage 18 of the Tour de France after a breakaway group of six riders duelled their way to the winter sports station at Orcières-Merlette, but uncertainty surrounds the health of race leader Tadej Pogacar’s UAE Team Emirates XRG, which has been swept by a virus since Monday’s rest day.

After Adam Yates’s stage-long calvary on the road to Voiron, Pogacar’s team was further weakened by the abandonment of his American colleague, Brandon McNulty, who quit the Tour with 21km of Thursday’s stage remaining.

Two more of Pogacar’s teammates, Tim Wellens and Florian Vermeersch, also appeared to struggle at times during the stage, which included five categorised climbs, including the final seven-kilometre ascent to the finish.

Speaking at the stage start in Voiron, Wellens suggested other riders within the team were unwell and revealed that he had a sore throat. Seen through the lens of Friday and Saturday’s mountain-top finishes on Alpe d’Huez, Pogacar, despite his 4m 32s lead over second-placed Remco Evenepoel, has reason to be worried.

“I’m sad that Brandon could not finish. We will see in the next two days but Adam is getting better, and tomorrow, we will go with the flow,” Pogacar said. “I think we can manage. It’s the third week, all the teams are suffering. There are bodies everywhere on a stage like today. We will keep fighting and I believe we can do it.”

Here’s the official visualisation of what the riders are taking on today:

William Fotheringham's stage guide

William Fotheringham

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.

Preamble

On the face of it Tadej Pogacar going into a marque mountain stage with a four and a half minute lead would mean only one thing but the extent of the illness sweeping through the UAE Team Emirates XRG camp is becoming hilariously muddled, with staff are saying things only to be contradicted by those on the bikes. Most notably Tim Wellens, who only just finished stage 18 inside the time cut before telling reporters that the riders ate alone in their rooms the previous night and that it was “pretty clear there is some illness in the team”. That much was evident from Adam Yates’ visible struggles over the past few days and the abandonment of Brandon McNulty on the road to Orcières-Merlette. McNulty, who looked awful during the pre-stage presentation in Voiron, had to climb off his bike, cut drift and alone after 50km.

Unless Pogacar himself is seriously ill this will not change the calculus of the general classification too much. Even without his usual cohort of high quality lieutenants the Slovenian is more than capable of seeing this through the final few stages and his rivals are not exactly paragons of strength either. However, it had been assumed that Pogacar would be attacking the first of two assaults on Alpe d’Huez. The first, today, is a short 127km stage that goes uphill from kilometre zero and appeared primed for Pogacar to go after Marco Pantani’s record time for an ascent of the famous mountain. He may well still go for it, but that certainly seems riskier without a fully functioning team around him.

What else does this mean? Well it certainly increases the chances for a breakaway success as UAE Team Emirates XRG will not be able to control the peloton to the same levels as they have for much of this race. It also means today goes from being a stage where it was all about how much Pogacar would win by to becoming a test of his ability to fend for himself. He’s Pogacar, so the concern is not too great, but it’s not the scenario he would have envisioned.