Tour de France – Thomas tries to tighten his grip on the yellow jersey during the last mountain stage | sport

160km from the finish line: The peloton hits the foot of the second climb of the day, the Cat 4 Cote de Capvern-les-Bains. Peter Sagan is at the front of the pack, trying to discourage other runners from speeding up the pace. Further down the road, the leading pack of six riders is now pursued by a group of 12, who are one minute behind them.

169km from the finish: The inventory at this time: Damien Gaudin (Direct Energie) , Lukas Pöstlberger (Bora), Silvan Dillier (AG2R), Adam Yates (Mitchelton-Scott), Bob Jungels (Quick-Step) and Tanel Kangert (Astana) are in the leading pack of six riders

They are pursued by another group of six, including Warren Barguil (Fortuneo-Samsic) and Julian Alaphilippe (Quick-Step), who is 50 seconds behind them. Alaphilippe is the current holder of the polka dot jersey, while Barguil is the only rider in the race to take it.

There are still half a dozen riders on the road between this second group of six and the peloton, who sat down and no longer pursues.

So, three separate groups of six riders on the road ahead of the pack and the gap between the leading group and the pack is 3min 05sec. I suspect we will soon have a separate group of 18 runners in front of the pool before long.

An email from Guy Hornsby: "I am surprised to see this as a fait accompli for G," he writes. "Yes, it has been quite compelling until now, and with a strong team (and Froome) behind him, he is in the box seat, but the stage of today's he is brutal, even if it is not an arrival at the top Tomorrow is a bumpy TT where fatigue could lead to a disaster, with Dumoulin on the best TT driver of the race.

"I do not say that it's wide open, but Thomas's coronation is a bit premature. I would be on the moon for him if / when he does, seeing that he has always been the maid of honor or in a ditch in Grand Tours, and he deserves it absolutely, but there is still a lot miles to go before a stroll to Paris Sunday. "

179km from the finish: Adamien Damien Gaudin (Direct Energy), Lukas Pöstlberger (Bora) and Silvan Dillier (AG2R) are on The point of being joined by Adam Yates (Mitchelton-Scott), Bob Jungels (Quick-Step) and Tanel Kangert (Astana). The gap with the peloton is 28 seconds, but there is a lot of counterattack at the front of the attack.

Lance Armstrong Speaks: I was listening to Lance Armstrong's Podcast of Move by entering Guardian Towers this morning and in his foretaste From today 's scene, the former cyclist suggested that there could still be a twist in the tail of this year' s Tour.

"My spidey sense tells me … I do not know, I just have the impression that this race is not over," he said with former teammate George Hincapie . "Someone's going to have a bad day, I think if Geraint Thomas has a bad day, then Chris Froome will do everything he wants to do and he has the right to do that." [Thomas] should be cast very early on the Tourmalet

"It's a very, very hard climb. I do not know … it'll be the Team Sky show. They are so strong and so dominant as a unit. Even after losing Gianni Moscon, it's like they were not totally affected. Lance Armstrong

186km remaining: Damien Gaudin (Direct Energy), Lukas Pöstlberger (Bora) and Silvan Dillier (AG2R) are less than a minute away of the platoon.

192km away: The camera focuses on Peter Sagan at the back of the pack and the Slovak already has the camera. look like you're crossing a wounded world. His right arm, right leg and right shoulder are all heavily bandaged following the accident that he suffered on Wednesday afternoon.

The fall of Sagan has not been captured by television cameras, but it seems to have been heavily disgusting. He looked awful when he crossed the line on Wednesday night, his shirt was shredded and according to his own account, he said that he "hit a rock with my bad, really hard". He will have a time limit to finish inside this afternoon and it seems very clear that he is already fighting in these early stages.

193km away: Damien Gaudin (Direct Energy), Lukas Pöstlberger (Bora) and Silvan Dillier (AG2R) form a small breakaway to three, about 19 seconds in the rest of the group. Dillier is the first on Cote de Loucrup.

Easier to do than to do: Geraint Thomas will avoid s & Approaching crowds lining the road Friday's mountain scene after a viewer deliberately grabbed it and almost crushed it on stage 1, writes Jeremy Whittle .

From 197km to go: And there are two kilometers left before the runners hit the foot of the first climb of the day. It's category 4 Côte de Loucrup, quite steep, where we could see the first significant attack of the day.

They run on stage 19: Christian Prudhomme waves his flag as the peloton comes out of Lourdes and goes out into the country.

The deployment of today began: The holy super holy city of Lourdes is the picturesque setting of the city of Lourdes. Current processional leg-looser while the riders travel the first five kilometers to neutral before receiving the starting signal from race director Christian Prudhomme

This could be a fascinating race and one suspects that he is of religious nature, Geraint Thomas could have offered a few decades of rosary night, praying for the safe pbadage to Laruns with his advance on GC still intact. Lourdes is the right place to pray to the Virgin Mary. Many Catholics believe that she appeared eighteen times to Marie-Brenadette Soubirous in that same city in 1858.

Sean Ingle was in Pau to see Arnaud Demare win the bunch sprint at the end of a step otherwise quite without history.

Excerpt from the forefront of William Fotheringham: One last day of Pyrenean climbing clbadic: the triptych of Aspin, Tourmalet, Aubisque – climbing by the little known collar – before a descent towards the finish. A maintenance operation before the next day's time trial for one who is in yellow, with a break going up to the end – someone like Rafal Majka for the win – and maybe a fight final for the jersey of the King of the Mountains.