Join Michael Butler for updates as the race makes his way from Italy into France
And the main pack are back together again. One time gap of note: Wout van Aert is back down the road at around 1m 13s down.Up the valley they go and the front quartet aren’t able to pull out much of a gap. The group comprises Alexey Lutsenko, ChristopherThis epically long first climb to Sestrieres officially clocks in as a category two, with 39.9km at an average gradient of 3.7%.
When cycling first took the US by storm in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Black Americans joined in the new pastime. One Black cyclist, Marshall “Major” Taylor, became a world champion in 1899. Yet American cycling installed a color line in professional racing. Opportunities became so limited that Black competitors had to take them wherever they could find them – including on the vaudeville stage and in Europe.
It’s hot, both in terms of pace and the temperature on a glorious day, somewhere in the region of 27C where the riders currently are. It’s currently 18C in Valloire at today’s finish. There are still 29km to go on the current incline …– as well as Britain’s Fred Wright, Kevin Geniets and Harold Tejada. The gap is minimal to the peloton, mind.
Gone are the days when the Tour’s opening week was a stultifying succession of sprint stages: this is pure climbing. The first 50km are uphill, but the sting comes at the end; it’s unprecedented for the Tour to go over a pass as high as the Galibier this early on. If the defending champion, Jonas Vingegaard, is short of form we will find out here; the downhill finale will suit Tom Pidcock, arguably the fastest descender in the bunch.
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