Regionalliga Nord

The eight leaders are onto the Cat.3 Cote des Terrasses (3.4km at 6.6%). Should Paret-Peintre take the 2pts over the top, he’ll be just seven points shy of Tadej Pogacar’s lead in the KOM standings.

The difference between the Frenchman and his rival Carapaz is that the former is going all-in for polka dot points, whereas Carapaz has an eye on the stage win today.

It looks like the GC fireworks will go on hold for another day – or, when they play out, they will have no bearing on the stage result. That’s because Pogacar and his GC rivals are now 5’10” behind. The 28 chasers are still 50 seconds behind the 14 leaders.

They’re on the short descent to the foot of the next categorised climb.

The large 28-man chase group is only 50 seconds down and might make the connection before the next climb. Some big names in the move:

Armirail (Visma), Tratnik (Red Bull), Simmons (Lidl), Baudin, Healy, Valgren (all EF), Tejada (Astana), Caruso (Bahrain), Kwiatkowski (Ineos), Stuyven, Vervaeke (both Soudal), O’Connor, Matthews (both Jayco), Cort (Uno-X), Bennett, Frigo (both NSN), Rubio (Movistar), Izagirre (Cofidis), Howson, Meurisse (Pinarello), Braz Afonso, Martin (both Groupama), Hirschi, Storer (both Tudor), Delbove, Delettre and Le Berre (all TotalEnergies).

Let’s have a quick recap of who’s in this leading group after the merger ahead of the summit:

Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease a Bike), Mads Pedersen and Mathias Vacek (Lidl-Trek), Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost), Egan Bernal and Thymen Arensman (Netcompany INEOS), Valentin Paret-Peintre (Soudal Quick-Step), Felix Engelhardt and Mauro Schmid (Jayco-AlUla), Tobias Johannessen (Uno-X), Pablo Castrillo and Raul Garcia Pierna (Movistar), Romain Gregoire (Groupama-FDJ) and Nicolas Breuillard (TotalEnergies).

The two front groups come together with 600m remaining so we now have a strong fighting force on the front with green and polka dot jersey contenders, as well as some superb climbers. They have 1’20” on the next group and 3’40” on the pack.

Paret-Peintre opens up the sprint with Carapaz in his wheel – and they cross in that order, so it’s 5pts for the Frenchman and 3pts for the Ecuadorian. He’s now 9pts behind Pogacar in the KOM standings.