Tour de France 2018: Geraint Thomas defends his time trial lead in phase 20 – live! | sport

It must be said that the weather forecast is not good today with drizzle throughout the aftermath noon and thunderstorms potentially around 15h30-16h. .. which, rather conveniently, is when all of the GC's main competitors will be on the course.

And we left at Saint-Pée-sur-Nivelle with Lawson Craddock on the ramp. That's Lawson Craddock from the awful opening weekend accident that has been so important for him to have done so far. The rain is falling and it looks pretty hard. The American takes it very carefully.

Just point of Andrija here

Here are the start times for the top 10 (every hour) BST):

15h11: Ilnur Zakarin

3:13 pm: Nairo Quintana

3:15 pm: Daniel Martin

3:17 pm Romain Bardet [19659008] 15h19: Mikel Landa

3:21 pm: Steven Kruijswijk

3:23 pm: Chris Froome

3:25 pm Primoz Roglic

15h27: Tom Dumoulin

15h29: Geraint Thomas

And some notable others and imaginary horsemen dispersed throughout the day …

11.06am: Arnaud Demare

11:31: Maciej Bodnar

11.45: Alexander Kristoff

[194590] 22] 12:49: Yves Lampae

1:11 pm: Peter Sagan

1:43 pm: Stefan Kung

1.51pm: Michal Kwiatkowski [19659008] 2.25 pm: Julian Alaphilippus

2h27: Tejay Van Garderen

2:31 pm: Adam Yates

Bore da ! Whitchurch High School could soon add a Tour de France winner to its list of alumni, as well as three-time Champions League winner and Grand Slam captain and British and Irish Lions. Geraint Thomas would have been three years of school above Gareth Bale and Sam Warburton in Cardiff, but is a time-trial-nothing-daft-now far to surpass no doubt their achievements. As long as he stays on the bike today and keeps closest rivals Tom Dumoulin and Primoz Roglic at 2 minutes 5 seconds away, Thomas will become only the first British Tour winner and the first Welsh to claim the yellow link.

Of course, despite the heavy buffer, he is pursued by Dumoulin, world time trial champion (Roglic finished second in Bergen) which was 1min 40sec faster than him at the ITT during the Tour from last year. for this step. But Thomas has a considerable time pedigree who himself won the national championships in June and finished second at an ITT at the Giro in May … but 49secs later, you know who.

present some challenges because it is hilly … very hilly, actually. A winding, winding road features a series of powerful ups and downs, with barely a flat stretch longer than 1 km, a short and very sharp climb to 3 km from the finish with gradations up to 22% before the descent to Espelette – The house of Espelette pepper. In reality, all the heat is likely to be behind Thomas in the battle for the podium since 32secs separate Dumoulin and Chris Froome in fourth position.

And some essential readings before the race: