Tour de France 2024: Pogacar defends big lead as riders tackle stage 20 – live | Tour de France 2024

85km to go: The leading trio work together, while the chasers, including Bardet and Carapaz are closing in to within 20 seconds. There’s flat spots and a town full of fans, heavy traffic, through Moulinet. The gap to Pogacar et approaches four minutes but some talk that Soler, up ahead, will be his satellite rider.

90km to go: Ciccone and Gee, two top-ten riders, are chasing points, with Rodriguez struggling. A reminder of GC before the day began.

• 1. Tadej Pogacar (SLO) UAE Team Emirates 78:49:20

• 2. Jonas Vingegaard (DEN) Team Visma – Lease a Bike +5:03

• 3. Remco Evenepoel (BEL) Soudal – Quick-Step +7:01

• 4. João Almeida (POR) UAE Team Emirates +15:07

• 5. Mikel Landa (ESP) Soudal – Quick-Step +15:34

• 6. Carlos Rodríguez (ESP) INEOS Grenadiers +17:36

• 7. Adam Yates (GBR) UAE Team Emirates +19:18

• 8. Derek Gee (CAN) Israel – Premier Tech +21:52

• 9. Matteo Jorgenson (USA) Team Visma – Lease a Bike +22:4

• 10. Giulio Ciccone (ITA) Lidl – Trek +22:46

The second climb, the Col de Turini, has begun, fully 20km, a first category last seen in 2020, on a stage won eventually by Julian Alaphilippe.

Plenty now chasing something here, with Carapaz 30 seconds behind the leading trio, with chasers behind him, and then the yellow jersey dropping back. It looks as if the GC contenders have let their men go for the stage wins.

90km to go: Paul Griffin gets in touch: “Two issues regarding the Pog hegemony. First, I don’t see any evidence that domination is financially damaging. The NBA grew global on the back of Michael Jordan et al’s success. Usain Bolt raised the profile of track and field — and his sporting demise is actually a bigger problem than his certain victories.

“Until he was exposed, Lance Armstrong boosted the profile of cycling. When Poggy steps down, the concern will be that a charming phenomenon has left the stage, and fewer people will pay attention. Second, it’s not entirely clear that Pog will dominate.”

“Vingegaard may be a Roundhead to pog’s cavalier, but his performances when fully fit are astonishing. His TT performance in the last race against the clock last year, is arguably the greatest physical feat in the Tour for many years. It’s far from impossible that we could be stressing about the Vingegaard era in a year or two. What a time to be watching.”

Armstrong added an audience, sure, but not sure they stayed once he was gone, and later exposed. I think the best thing about Pogacar is his attack of the one-day classics with the Grand Tours, in the best Hinault/Merckx style. He’s so thrilling to watch, in a fashion Armstrong wasn’t.

Michael Kane: “Wouldn’t it be better if Armstrong gave commentary based upon his own knowledge of cycling? Great win by Pogacar yesterday. Hopefully, he’s got himself a blood transfusion to make him less likely to crack on a tiring day today. While he’s at it, he should get on TV and infer I’ll lose my job if I don’t stop talking about him. That’s smart racing.”

Lance really was that bad, wasn’t he? Remember when German TV stopped showing the sport after all the scandals. Not all of them Lance, of course, but he was forever the leading man. To be fair, his 2009 comeback was blockbuster stuff, that Tour was wild.

100km to go: Mas and Armirail fly down the descent, and the gap to the peloton is a minute. Kelderman joins the leading duo. As ever, this looks full of danger, great nasty hairpins of the type that you struggle to haul your Renault 5 round.

Mas goes first over the climb…Jorgenson steals past Carapaz

110km to go: “Chaos” is how Adam Blythe on the Discovery bike describes what Pogacar has done to the rest of the field. He’s riding alongside Carapaz. Carlos Rodriguez of Team Big Sir Jim has been dropped, and at sixth in GC, could be tumbling down. So too Simon Yates, knackered after a couple of near-misses with chasing a stage.

112km to go: Nils Politt, after two almighty pulls on Friday, looks cooked in the Med sun. Marc Soler, another superdomestique, joins him. Visma’s Wilco Kelderman and Bruno Armirail, of AG2R, are the leaders with Enrique Mas joining up. Carapaz gives chase, looking for polka points.

115km to go: Richard Carapaz is being paced up this second category climb to make sure of the points. Should he win this one and the next, he will be unassailable. The gap to the grupetto is opening, with Cavendish low in the saddle as it goes over a minute. Here comes 10km of pain for the climb. Adam Yates is in the leading group – let off the leash by Pog? Is that brother Simon joining him? It is. Visma’s Kelderman, a familiar face from yesterday, tries to get away. Oh, and Pogacar has joined them, Remco and Jonas for company. This could be the peloton for the rest of the day.

120km to go: We have a group: Costa, Wærenskjold, Magnus Cort, Neilson Powless, Hugo Houle, Anthony Turgis and Jordan Jegat. This is an experienced group of stage winners, though the gap starts dropping to a peloton driven on by Jai Hindley, and suddenly, Turgis is dropped. There is dissent in the group ranks. At the back, the grupetto is collecting as they go past the Matisse museum. And so does the main group as the first climb begins.

128km to go: Søren Wærenskjold, another Norwegian, continues to stay away, before some others set off in pursuit. He idles, and once he has company resumes his pace. Rui Costa, the old stager, joins him for company. At the back, Matthieu van der Poel has a puncture. Untimely.

Away they go in Nice!

This stage is very similar to a Paris-Nice stage, and so is this an indicator? Though Jorgenson may have little left after his efforts on Friday.

The riders make their way through the streets of Nice, where the sky is blue with only a few clouds. Rather unlike this clammy, cloudy day in London. The expectation is that this stage will begin with wildcat attacks for a break. This will be hilly.

Gary Naylor gets in touch: “I do feel that, as the patron of the peloton and leader of the team with the biggest budget, Pog does need to be careful about the well-being of the sport. Who’s going to sponsor a team to see its riders continually arriving at the finish a minute or two down on Pog or a sprinter and a scattering of their domestiques in two of the GTs?

“The real villain is Christian Prudhomme, who was too clever for his own good in jamming the Galibier into Stage 4 looking for a three week mano-a-mano between Pog and Vingegaard. For very understandable reasons, it didn’t happen and we’re left with a rider who likes to win winning when he likes.”

Vingegaard is speaking, and saying the first two weeks were the highest level he had been at but the last had been too much, after the preparation. His plan for today seems to look for Remco and hold on to second.

Some discussion of the Pog/hog thing.

Matthew Lysaght: “Absolutely not, in my eyes anyway. It was the Queen Stage, he’s in yellow and he clearly wanted to “layeth the smacketh down” on Visma. As they hinted on Eurosport, he could have eyes on Cavs record too and that is all the more reason to do what he did.”

Joe Pearson: “After yesterday’s stage, some of the commentators (mostly the former riders) on USA/NBC were grousing that Pogacar was breaking some unwritten rule by taking the stage from Jorgenson. And I don’t get it. One of the qualities of being the GOAT is to have no mercy for your competitors. Did Michael Jordan have mercy? No. How about Tiger Woods? Absolutely not. If he wants to go down in history, Pog should crush all of those around him, every chance he gets.”

Alberto Contador, speaking to Discovery at the Nice start line, says of Pogacar: “he can improve.” There’s big smiles between Vingegaard and Pogacar at the start line, with Richard Carapaz in polka as they set off on the départ fictif.

Iain Cameron gets in touch: “Seeing Lance Armstrong criticising Pogacar, saying he shouldn’t have attacked again yesterday, just underlines why I love Pog. Armstrong, then Sky, and latterly Visma, liked to make one or two decisive moves then shut the race down. But for Tadej attack is the best form of defence, and it’s great to watch. And uber-cheat Armstrong should keep his thoughts to himself anyway. Ciao.”

Before all the revelations, and bar a couple of (in)famous incidents, Armstrong’s defensive riding was such a drain on Le Tour.

Friday was a grim day in the grupetto, with Cav making it but Arnaud DeMare not so lucky.

And some ructions between riders over a “sticky bottle”.

It will be loud and rowdy on today’s climbs.

Salient point made here by the breakaway king. Is Pog a hog?

Oh, and visit Nice. It’s really..er, nice.

Here’s Jeremy Whittle’s report from the finish of Stage 19.

William Fotheringham’s verdict

Shorter than the day before, but even more vertical metres of climbing. By now most of the questions should have answers: can Pogacar hang on to the form that won him the Giro, can Evenepoel find some climbing legs in his first Tour, have Roglic and Vingegaard recovered from their horrific crash in April, and is Egan Bernal anywhere near his old self? As on Friday, this is a day for the overall contenders in a totally unique final weekend to the Tour.

Preamble