Key events
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!
133km to go: M.Prudhomme waves his flag, and they go like gangbusters. Jonas Abrahamsen, former wearer of polka, is in the leading group of four, but they are soon added to. Romain Bardet’s involved too. EF send Neilson Powless up ahead, as possible support to protect Carapaz’s mountain points.
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.
Arnaud Démare, hors-délai : “Je me suis battu jusqu’au bout. Depuis la Bonette, je savais que ça n’allait pas le faire mais je ne suis pas du genre à abandonner. Il y a la fierté, je suis content de mon étape. Il reste 2 jours, ça aurait été peut-être demain sinon.” #TDF2024 pic.twitter.com/kW9qxb2jxb
— Le Gruppetto (@LeGruppetto) July 19, 2024
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?
Why do people say it’s greedy when a climber takes 4 wins but not when a sprinter takes 4 wins.
— Thomas De Gendt (@DeGendtThomas) July 20, 2024
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
As he celebrated knocking the socks off everyone in his final climb to win Stage 19, Tadej Pogacar said he quite fancied watching the breakaway go away on this final Saturday. After all, there’s a time trial to contend with in Nice on Sunday and legs will need to be fresh. Do we believe him? Considering the state of Jonas Vingegaard at the finish on Friday, there may be no more race to run. The deposed champion could not hold back the tears having already passed on his congratulations to Remco Evenepoel for keeping him honest. So, this may be the one that so many riders have been waiting for.
Join us for all the action over a very hilly stage indeed.