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Those two join Bais as they reach the official start of the climb. They will spend the next 16km climbing at an average gradient of 6%.
Marcellusi is the Bardiani rider, and Hamilton the Picnic rider.
A Picnic and Bardiani rider are trying to join Bais.
As the road goes uphill already towards the official start of the climb, Bais attacks.
A Bardiani rider tried attacking at the flag, but was brought back as Visma-Lease a Bike take control of the peloton and set the tempo.
There will only be two kilometres until the start of the day’s first climb, the category one Saint-Barthélémy.
One factor that will come into play today is the heat. Like yesterday, it’s a bit of a scorcher out there, but this time any GC rider who struggles to find their best legs in the hot temperatures is in danger of losing time.
Afonso Eulálio at the start wearing pink – for one last time?
The riders are on the move in the neutralised start – one of the few parts of today’s parcours that is flat.
Vingegaard has been candid about his intentions of taking the pink jersey today, but they can be sure that Afonso Eulálio will fight to the very end to keep it. The young Portuguese rider has defied expectations to keep it for this long, but 33 seconds feels like a very slender margin on a stage as tough as this up against the climber as good as Vingegaard.
That means that this could be the day that Jonas Vingegaard at last seizes control of the Maglia Rosa. Indeed, he sounded very confident in yesterday’s post-stage interview.
All this climbing means that at the GC which, which has been on a hold this week aside from the one time trial, will reignite, with all the riders up there in and around the top ten jostling for position.
For the first time since the very end of the second week, when Jonas Vingegaard climbed to victory at…
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