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We’re around an hour and a half away from the neutralised roll out in Gap, before racing proper gets underway with the flag drop at 13:20 CEST.
Even with a breakaway some seven minutes up the road, race leader Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) simply couldn’t help himself with another attack near the crest of the Col du Noyer. He gained two seconds on Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike), while Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) looked strong up the final two climbs to gain 10 and 12 seconds on his rivals.
The racing gets underway from Gap on today’s stage, as it has done for many years at the Tour. With undulating roads right from start to finish taking in over 3000m of elevation gain, expect more all-out racing as was the case on stage 17.
Stage 18 presents another and perhaps the final chance for a strong breakaway to have its day, such is the difficulty of Friday and Saturday’s mountain tests and the final time trial into Nice which will surely be won by one of the GC favourites.
It’s billed as a “hilly” stage by Le Tour but it actually has more elevation than yesterday’s mountain stage to SuperDévoluy so expect another furious fight to get into any moves and it should be another thriller. Here’s the profile of the 179.5km stage:
Bonjour and welcome to Cyclingnews’ live coverage of stage 18 of the 2024 Tour de France!
