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.
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!)
It was good though.
Now it is over, barring force majeur.
But this stage proved exactly why it was ridiculous to declare it over yesterday. 1:40 was not a remotely unbreachable gap.
Absolutely, it is both ridiculous to declare the race over after yesterday, but equally Jonas is strong favourite.
If he can keep that form through today then he will win, probably with a bigger gap. But that is a sizable 'if'.
Powless stands no chance. He won't even keep up with the break over the climbs. It is between Ciccone and whoever is first over Col de la Loze.
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.