We’re near the Spanish border today, moving further west into the Département Pyrénées-Atlantique with the starting line in the commune of Laruns. Located in the Ossau Valley, Laruns is not in the high mountains, but we’ll get there today, don’t worry. Following the Col de la Pierre-Saint-Martin (HC) and the Port de Larrau (Cat1), the finish is on the Col Bagargui, or as it’s known in Euskarian the Col Bagargiak (meaning “pale beech” in reference to the nearby Iraty forrest).
The second mountain top finish in a row, it will further shape the GC. The podium fight is currently the most exciting. Sivakov dropped to fourth place yesterday, but he’s still only 17 seconds behind Morton and 39 behind Tenorio. Behind them, riders like Latour, Eastman and Wellens need a big day if they want to make one last push towards the Top 4.
With a strong performance, Chiarello has come closer to the Top 10, and Hirt, Pogacar and Geoghegan Hart certainly still have ambitions in that direction as well. The latter three might have to rely on breakaways for that to happen, though. The breakaway is of course the second main story of the day: Who’ll get in, and will they finally succeed?
Lastly, the mountain classification is still wide open. Arensman leads for the 15th day in a row, but Beltran trails him by just 16 points and Foss isn’t too far off either. In the points classification, we’ll see if Herklotz can extend his lead further in order to wear the green jersey on the podium in Paris.
Laruns is a beautiful village but the riders will only briefly get to enjoy the view. It’s around 7 kilometers to the start of the Col de Marie Blanque, a climb of the second category.
Arensman is once again on the move. He follows the initial attack by Pinot alongside Barbio, Karnulin and Hofstede.
They’re caught again at first but Karnulin tries again, now with Warchol and yesterday’s stage winner Roglic among the counterattackers.
An interesting group follows that includes Giannoutsos, Nesset, Lunke, Pogacar, Goos and Geoghegan Hart.
And that’s still not all: Vosekalns, Chamorro, Kritskiy, Vingegaard, Rodriguez and Amezawa go for it, some good climbers on the attack today.
It took a while for those last six riders to catch up, but then we have a very interesting group of 18 who will tackle this stage together. Without Foss and Beltran, the riders most dangerous to Arensman (101 points) are Barbio (82), Chamorro (52), Pogacar (50), Smith (43) and Vosekalns (42).
Well, scratch Barbio: The pace is too high for the Portuguese already.
Of the others, Pogacar is the only one to collect any points on the Col de Marie Blanque, and only two of them. He’s the best placed rider in the GC of this group, 13th overall in the GC and just under 13 minutes behind Herklotz. Also less than 3 minutes behind Godoy in 10th place, leading to some work from EA Vesuvio at the front of the peloton, which keeps the gap limited.
Unsurprisingly, Arensman won’t be collecting any more points today. He drops as Roglic attacks.
But again none of his rivals score points, so he’ll be pleased with that.
Vosekalns was distanced in that sprint to the summit, too. He only barely rejoins as they head into the biggest climb of the day, the Col de la Pierre-Saint-Martin, and is dropped again soon. The peloton keeps riding at a high pace, the lead of the group is still under 3 minutes.
Girdlestone and Kirsch are sprinting into the climb, quickly picking off Vosekalns. The remaining 15 are now only 1’30 ahead of the peloton, which is already down to 72 men with more than 90 kilometers to go.
Make that just 32 a few moments later! But the EA Vesuvio armada takes a backseat now and Stork calms things down. A pace this high, and a race this volatile, is certainly not what Puma want.
That gives the breakaway at least a little breathing room, but Chamorro won’t be able to benefit, he’s dropped. Vingegaard follows a few hundred meters later.
This is madness. The peloton increases the pace again, Hirt himself now leads the group despite having Warchol up ahead. They’re down to 28 riders, many leaders are already isolated.
Well, this might explain it: Warchol, alongside Rodriguez, can’t keep up with the breakaway anymore. Lunke had been dropped a bit earlier, leaving 10 men up front. The weather, which had already been terrible, has now turned to snow.
Pogacar is driving the pace and he drops more riders. First Amezawa and Karnulin, then Goos and Nesset.
It’s not looking too pretty for Aker – MOT, as Foss is dropped in the peloton and Preidler struggles, too.
Roglic rides away from his companions in the final kilometer of the climb. He looks very strong again. The gap to the yellow jersey group has grown back to over 3 minutes. Hirt is still leading, but now at a much more measured pace.
Roglic collects 20 points at the summit, 14 go to Pogacar. Those two now have 52 and 66 mountain points, respectively. Alongside Geoghegan Hart, Kritskiy, Pinot and Giannoutsos, they seem to be the strongest riders among the breakaway.
At the intermediate sprint, 11 riders have reunited at the front, only Rodriguez and Lunke did not make it back. The main group of 30, where Foss and Preidler have hung on, remains at around 3’20. Stork and Girdlestone take turns at the head of the group.
It is extremely foggy at the summit of the Puerto de Laza, you can just barely make out that Pinot wins the sprint. But those 5 mountain points of course mean nothing to him.
Kirsch and Stork set a high pace on the Port de Larrau, but that doesn’t deter one of the most aggressive riders in the field: Latour wants action before the final climb!
Pogacar, Pinot and Roglic try their best to keep the breakaway ahead. That’s too much for Nesset, Karnulin and Amezawa. Meanwhile, Latour quickly builds a one minute gap to the yellow jersey group, which shows no reaction yet.
With 1.5 kilometers to the summit, Pinot attacks. Roglic and Giannoutsos stay with him, Pogacar tries to catch up.
He does, leaving Giannoutsos behind in the process. Perhaps as a reaction to this, Chiarello has attacked from the peloton, which is currently around 2’10 behind the leaders.
Wellens takes over and gets rid of almost all remaining domestiques in the process. Latour is almost a minute and a half ahead, some 50 seconds behind the trio at the head of the race.
Pinot heads into the descent with a small gap over Pogacar and Roglic. None of the three are particularly good downhill riders.
Latour has shown his descending skills a few times, he leads a small group with Warchol, Goos and Giannoutsos. They’re the only remaining riders ahead of the GC group.
The first Top 10 rider to fall behind is Schelling, who lost contact in the last few meters before the summit. Chiarello is back with the main group.
Wellens doesn’t have many chances left to move up into the Top 5, especially with Latour ahead. He uses a moment of inattentiveness among his rivals and attacks.
Latour has caught Roglic and Pogacar. They trail Pinot by just 15 seconds heading into the Col Bagargui.
The GC contenders were careful on the downhill, not risking anything, but right after that, Tenorio accelerates and creates a selection. Eastman, Sivakov, Chiarello, Geoghegan Hart and Herklotz are with him, Morton most notably not. Wellens is around a minute ahead of them.
Morton doesn’t leave anything to chance, he quickly jumps ahead to the group. Yates and Godoy lead the chasers, where Schelling has returned.
Latour has taken over the lead of the race, but Roglic and Pinot remain with him for the moment. Pogacar on the other hand has imploded.
Wellens is moving well, though his gap to the chasing group has gone down to around 45 seconds. Tenorio still leads behind him.
Hirt has made it to the yellow jersey group, but it might not be the yellow jersey group anymore soon: Herklotz attacks! It’s a 2’30 gap to the leaders, nothing he can’t close in 5 kilometers.
Latour knows what’s coming. He increases the pace and leaves Pinot and Roglic behind.
Herklotz reaches Wellens, who in turn had just caught up with Warchol, Giannoutsos and Goos. The Dutch gives his teammate a lift.
Behind them, Geoghegan Hart and Hirt are dropped by the Tenorio group.
Yates, Schelling and Godoy rank 8 to 10 in the GC, aren’t looking too fresh anymore. So far, they don’t lose time on each other, but 7th place, held by Wellens, is getting out of reach quickly and they’re also under attack by 11th in the GC Chiarello, who, very impressively, is still keeping up with Morton, Tenorio, Sivakov and Eastman.
The pace is slowing down almost everywhere as riders pay the dues for their efforts in these horrendous conditions. Hirt makes it back to the Tenorio group, they have around a minute on the Yates group, which now includes Geoghegan Hart. They also trail Herklotz by 45 seconds, where Wellens has attacked. The yellow jersey is still 2 minutes behind Latour, who at this pace is onto the virtual podium!
Herklotz and Wellens continue to slowly make their way towards the front. Latour has exactly 3 kilometers left to go, including stretches far over 10%.
Wellens moves past Roglic, a good minute behind Latour. Everyone’s on their last legs now.
Geoghegan Hart can’t keep up with the Yates group. Behind him on the road are, among others, Karnulin, Kritskiy and Foss, fighting for their places in the Top 20 just like the Brit.
Meanwhile, Hirt is dropped again by the Tenorio and Morton group. He’s some 45 seconds ahead of Godoy and co., that’s not enough to crack the Top 10.
Wellens reaches Pinot, it doesn’t look like Herklotz will be able to make a move for the stage win today. Latour is still a minute ahead, entering the last 1.5 kilometers.
Chiarello loses contact, what an effort though. Alongside him, Sivakov might be about to give up on his podium dreams, as Morton, Tenorio and Eastman are riding away.
Speaking of podiums: Latour trailed Morton by 2’26 before today. The time gap currently stands at … 2’18. With 20 bonus seconds, that would put the French in third place, within just seconds of Tenorio.
He has to get to the line in first place, of course, but that looks likely. Wellens is doing great today, but not good enough for a stage win.
And indeed, that goes to Pierre Latour, his second of the race, and in impressive fashion! Now, he’s counting the seconds.
One more quick look behind, where Schelling is in danger of being dropped by his rivals. He’s only 29 seconds ahead of Godoy in the GC.
Back to the finish where Wellens had one more acceleration in him to gain a few seconds. Finishing 56 seconds behind Latour, the Top 5 overall will be very difficult, but he’s fighting for 6th versus Eastman and that’s not looking half bad for him now.
Meanwhile, Pinot showed great fight from the breakaway for the second day in a row, once again not coming away with the big price. He’s got one more chance tomorrow.
Surprisingly, Roglic still has enough in the tank to keep Herklotz behind him. 4th for him, 5th for the German, a solid 6th place for Pogacar.
Morton sprints to defend his third place and finishes … 2’24 behind Latour. The Australian remains ahead by 2 seconds! Eastman is next, he falls behind Wellens to 7th. Tenorio is lucky that he’s given the same time as Morton, which means he remains in 2nd overall.
Sivakov leads Chiarello and Warchol over the line 42 seconds later, Hirt loses an additional 18 seconds. The Russian drops to 5th overall, now a minute behind the podium and also just 46 seconds ahead of Wellens. That’s going to be a tough fight tomorrow.
Behind Giannoutsos, who turns his breakaway efforts into a 14th place, Preidler and Godoy cross the line 3’44 behind the stage winner, but more importantly for Godoy ’58 behind Chiarello. In the Brazilian duel, the EA Vesuvio leader remains ahead, and thus in 10th place, for now. The last three Top 10 places get closer to each other in general though, as both Yates and Schelling lose additional time.
Geoghegan Hart, the figure in the fog crossing the line at this moment, drops one place to 15th behind Roglic. Foss loses one place, while Karnulin and Kritskiy drop two places to 20th and 21st respectively. They all finish 6’23 behind Latour.
Goldstein remains in last place of the GC, but a new challenger emerged in Viennet. The French finished last on the day, making the time limit with just 2 minutes to spare. Impressively, we’re still at 190 out of 192 riders in the field. Tomorrow, that might yet change, though.
Because tomorrow is the Queen Stage of this race. Five classified climbs, none lower than first category. And while the GC lead isn’t really in question anymore, there are still many very close and interesting battles to be fought. The one for the podium places stands out, of course, but all Top 10 spots are still potentially in flux one way or the other, and many riders outside of the Top 10 still having ambitions to either enter the Top 10 or go for the stage win. Plus, with that many mountain points available, the polka dot jersey is entirely up for grabs. 8 riders are within 33 points of each other at the top of the classification. See you tomorrow for what is hopefully an exciting conclusion to this year’s Pyrenees.
Tour de France 
