Tour de France

Stage 14 is a 151.9km mountain course between Saint - Lary - Soulan and Pla D'Adet

Stage14 ended by a Tadej Pogacar win (UAE Team Emirates), extending his lead in the general classification.

Today's course in a big mountain stage (15) between Londenvielle to Plateau De Beille over 197.7km.

Pogacar is just a machine thought he may have taken it a little easy yesterday but showed his class don't see anything can stop him unless covid hits or some serious bad luck

The 15th stage, held on Bastille Day in the Pyrenees,was won again by Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates). He finished over a minute in front of Jonas Vingegaard

It was a rest day yesterday. It's followed today by a 188.6km stage between Gruissan to Nimes. Expect an exciting sprint finish.

I missed the end of the last stage.

A crash for the man in the green jersey, Biniam Girmayage with only 1.5km to go meant that he wasn't in the sprint at the finish. It was won by Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck).

Podjacar has a 3 minute lead in the GC.

Today it's a 177.8km mountain stage from Saint-Paul-Trois-Chateaux to Superdevoluy

The winner of Stage 17 was Richard Carapaz who outpowered Brit Simon Yates by 37 secs.

Stage 18 is a 179,5km hilly course between Gap and Barcelonnette

Long time participant in the sport as well as a follower of the sport, here.

Quite frankly I am highly suspicious of the authenticity of what we are witnessing in the Tour and earlier in the Giro.

Both Pogacar and Vingegaard climbed Plateau D'Abet faster than Marco Pantani did in 1998.
In fact both of their times decimated 1998 record time.

I simply don't know what we are witnessing, because despite the improvement in nutrition, bike technology and yes more specialisation by riders today (specialisation being riders racing far fewer races than they did up to 1990's) : none of this explains how Pogacar and Vingegaard managed to blast Pantani's record out of the water.

Sad to say it, I don't think their performances are genuine.

The winner yesterday was Belgian rider Victor Campenaerts who outsprinted the other 2 riders of the breakaway.

Stage 19 is a 144.6km mountain course between Embrun to Isola 2000