Key events
108km to go. Van Der Poel has taken the 20 points on offer at the intermediate sprint to close in on Pogacar in second place in the green jersey standings.
110km to go. The intermediate sprint is coming up in a kilometre. The peloton is now back together and 30 seconds behind the lead group.
More thoughts on Pogacar’s game plan from John Westwell via email:
I wasn’t surprised that Pogacar didn’t seem bothered about winning yesterday’s stage, and I’d be even more surprised if he doesn’t just want to sit back and have a ‘steady’ day today. He knows he’s in control of the race now.
He will almost certainly be looking to win on Mont Ventoux on Tuesday, though. Not least because Eddy Merckxx won on the summit in 1970 and Pogacar seems keen to measure himself against Merckxx at every opportunity.
Andrew Benton has emailed in from Hong Kong with what he’s looking out for in the final week:
I’ll be looking for Geraint Thomas to bag a stage win. I’d imagine he’s not planning to, but perhaps an opportunity could present itself, and that would be super. And one for Julian Alaphilippe, too, why not.
In the ‘90s it was Indurain, in the 2000s Armstrong (its not about the bike, he wrote – and clearly it was not) and now, in the mid and late 20s, will we be seeing year after year of Pogacar victories? I don’t think so – he’ll dominate for a few years, but there are always others coming after him and they can be victorious, opportunity and chance can play a big role. But I don’t have a favourite, as long as the suspense continues until the last couple of stages each year.
118km to go. Ineos do not have a rider in the lead group and are working hard on the front of the peloton to bring that back. The gap is holding around 40 seconds.
120km to go. Just as I write that Milan and Pogacar are in the same group, a split appears in the peloton. Milan is on the wrong side of it and the green jersey is now in the third group on the road, around 20 seconds behind the peloton.
125km to go. The intermediate sprint is rapidly approaching, coming up in about 15km. The current green jersey leader is Jonathan Milan, who is 28 points ahead of the Pogacar. Both of them are in the main peloton but Van Der Poel is in the breakaway and could make up some serious ground in that particualr race today.
127km to go. Girmay has given up his pursuit of the breakaway, which now has a lead of 40 seconds over the peloton.
131km to go. The peloton is now back together, with Pogacar, Vingegaard and Florian Lipowitz all together.
134km to go. There are plenty of attacks happening. Biniam Girmay is the latest to go off from Pogacar’s group in pursuit of the 15-rider breakaway and have made up about 12 seconds.
137km to go. A large-ish group featuring Victor Campenaerts (Visma-Lease a Bike), Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost), Matej Mohoric (Bahrain Victorious), Clément Russo (Groupama-FDJ), Kaden Groves, Mathieu Van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Matteo Vercher (Total Energies), Alexey Lutsenko (Israel Premier Tech) and Jarrad Drizners (Lotto) are hovering around 30 seconds ahead of Pogacar’s group. The chasers off the back, a group which features Vingegaard, are catching the main bunch. The gap now is around 26 seconds, but the pace is very high.
143km to go. The peloton is about one minute behind Pogacar’s group. A slightly chaotic start to stage 15 which has limited any breakaway threats.
146km to go. The peloton is back together at the front, but there are some gaps further back. UAE Team radio has just been played on the broadcast requesting that Pogacar slow the front of the race as a Vingegaard was caught in the crash incident. It’s not clear whether or not the Dane was involved in the crash itself.
148km to go. We’ve had a couple of crashes in the early running, Julian Alaphilippe had to go the medical car but has resumed. Jordi Meeus and Gianni Moscon are pacing Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) back to the bunch.
150km to go. Neilson Powless of EF Education-EasyPost has gone off the front on his own but he was chased by Tobias Foss, Alexey Lutsenko and Yevgeniy Fedorov. This doesn’t look like it’s going to stick as they have less than 15 seconds on the peloton.
We are underway
Bit of confusion on my part, caused by ITV’s race coverage starting a little later and the baffling CET. Anyway, we’re now off racing.
Lotto have announced that Lennert Van Eetvelt will not start stage 15 and is withdrawing from the Tour de France. Van Eetvelt crashed at the Belgian national championships and was involved in an incident during the second stage of the Tour. According to his team, ‘the physical toll’ has proven too much for him to continue and he will now begin recovery.
As ever, you can get in touch via email. The link is at the top of this page. With the yellow jersey seemingly decided, I’d be interested to hear what you’ll be looking out for during the final week of the Tour.
The peloton will soon be rolling out of Muret and then it’ll be another 10 minutes to KM0 where the racing will get underway.
A quick reminder of the various standings
General classification
1. Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) 50hrs 40mins 28 secs
2. Jonas Vingegaard (Visma–Lease a Bike) +4mins 13secs
3. Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull–Bora–Hansgrohe )+7mins 53secs
4. Oscar Onley (Team Picnic–PostNL) + 9mins 18secs
5. Kévin Vauquelin (Arkéa–B&B Hotels) +10mins 21secs
6. Primoz Roglic (Red Bull–Bora–Hansgrohe) +10mins 34secs
7. Felix Gall (Decathlon–AG2R La Mondiale) +12mins
8. Tobias Halland Johannessen (Uno-X Mobility) + 12mins 33secs
9. Ben Healy (EF Education–EasyPost) +18mins 41secs
10. Carlos Rodríguez (Ineos Grenadiers) +22mins 57secs
Points classification
1. Jonathan Milan (Lidl–Trek) 251
2. Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) 223
3. Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin–Deceuninck) 190
4. Biniam Girmay (Intermarché–Wanty) 169
5. Tim Merlier (Soudal–Quick-Step) 150
6. Jonas Vingegaard (Visma–Lease a Bike) 135
7. Anthony Turgis (Team TotalEnergies) 130
8. Quinn Simmons (Lidl–Trek) 93
9. Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X Mobility) 90
10. Oscar Onley (Team Picnic–PostNL) 88
Mountain classification
1. Lenny Martinez (Team Bahrain Victorious) 60
2. Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) 52
3. Thymen Arensman (Ineos Grenadiers) 48
4. Jonas Vingegaard (Visma–Lease a Bike) 39
5. Michael Woods (Israel–Premier Tech) 38
6. Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull–Bora–Hansgrohe) 24
7. Ben Healy (EF Education–EasyPost) 20
8. Valentin Paret-Peintre (Soudal–Quick-Step) 16
9 Bruno Armirail (Decathlon–AG2R La Mondiale) 15
10. Michael Storer (Tudor Pro Cycling Team) 14
Preamble
It was nice of Tadej Pogacar to finally let some of the other riders to have a go yesterday and he still found a way to twist the knife further into the heart of Jonas Vingegaard’s beleaguered hopes of winning the Tour de France. Even the Dane’s most generous fans would struggle to describe him as a yellow jersey rival now. Pogacar’s advantage is 4mins 13secs and he is essentially racing against himself. The Slovenian has 21 stage wins and there is every chance that he will continue his rapid pursuit of Mark Cavendish’s record. Pogacar made it pretty clear after winning stage 13 on Friday that he is not planning to take any days off.
“I’m not here to make enemies,” he said, “but it’s the Tour, you cannot just back off if there’s the opportunity for a stage win. You never know when it’s your last day on the Tour.
“I will say it honestly. The team pays you to win, and there’s a big team behind me that supports me and that works every single day of their career to come to the Tour, to win the Tour. If there is an opportunity, you go for it. You can’t say no to a stage in the Tour.”
Still, UAE Emirates may look at the empty threat to Pogacar’s general classification lead and decide to play this one safe. There are three categorised climbs and a lumpy to descent into Carcassonne to contend with, so maybe there is a bit of hope for the breakaway? Should that be allowed to play out, such is the nature of professional cycling in this constant-go era that a winner for this stage will likely be a familiar name capable on the slopes from the one-day racing pack. Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Wout van Aert (Visma-LAB) are strong contenders, maybe even Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-LAB) or someone with that kind of profile.
For the good of the Tour, a non-Pogacar stage win would be good. Domination can quickly become dull and while there is nothing boring about Pogacar’s style of racing, cycling as a foregone conclusion is not much of a sport.