I probably have the skills, but not sure I have the time. I'll see what I can do if no-one gets there first.
I'm a bit wary that too many auto-gen'd threads that don't get engaged with would be bad. Maybe starting with one thread per stage for grand tours and one per race for other World Tour races.
One surprising stat of the Tour is that 7 of the top 8 on GC won a stage. Only Simon Yates (with two second places) failed to win one.
I have an inkling this may not come down to the expected bunch sprint.
In any case, Rodriguez will need to look out for any splits in the peloton, cause Bilbao is only 10 seconds off a top-5.
I reckon the GC podium place will be pretty competitive today. Between 3rd and 6th is barely 2 minutes - Adam Yates has three riders to mark which won't be easy.
It is not impossible that if he hasn't recovered from stage 17 that Pogacar cracks on an early hard-raced climb and drops out of the GC altogther.
Gall and Ciccone fighting for KOM should be fun.
(PREVIEW) After yesterdays surprise (but not entirely unpredicted) breakaway win, Philipsen will surely be even more motivated to pull a break back for a sprint.
But a hilly profile will surely make it harder than yesterday, and with few other teams likely to help out this is probably one for the break. So could be a hard fought start.
Fantastic result for the Lib Dems! And it wasn't even close. A new majority of 11000. This has got to give so much confidence going into next year that they can pick up lots of seats.
Wout's gone home, Yellow jersey only needs to be shepherded to Paris, so what will Jumbo-Visma be doing? Breakaway? Laporte to sprint? Or just chilling?
Philipsen has got over the mountains well and won all the flat sprints to date so looks strong favourite for today, but these flat stages late in Grand Tours can spring surprise breakaway wins.
find out if either can make the decisive move!
Answer: yes.
Henri Desgranges would disagree. "In the ideal bicycle race there would be only one finisher." I'm not sure what he thought of swagger.
Seriously though, it is fair not to like it, but to me a stage like that is what the Tour is all about. Absolute limit of endurance stuff, everyone struggling.
I'm going to claim that I fully anticipated that "first over Col de la Loze" would be Felix Gall and was thus bang on.
This has been such a hard tour. Pidcock lost over half an hour today and is still in 16th on GC (2 minutes behind 14th!)
Really sad for Oscar Onley DNF.
Hopefully eventually they'll work out the GC standings.