Tour de France 2024 Stage 20

July 20, 2024 The final mountain day on the Tour offers little to be decided. Yellow, Green and White are all but sealed, only the Polka Dots and a Stage win are still in play. A break had not gone before the Col de Braus but it was being pried open by Neilson Powless for his teammate Richard Carapaz to secure the mountains jersey. The race exploded with 116KM to go, only 17KM into the race. The break had not gone and only 30 riders were left in the bunch, everyone else had been dropped. Only 15 riders were left just 1KM later as UAE didn't seem eager to allow riders up the road and everyone from 6th through 10th was protecting their place in GC. Enric Mas of Movistar and Bruno Armirail of Decathlon AG2R went over the first climb together with Wilco Kelderman of Visma-Lease a Bike just behind. They had a lead of 55 seconds as the GC group started to swell. A group of five formed on the descent of the Col de Braus with Carapaz, Marc Soler of UAE, Jan Tratnik of Visma, Clément Champoussin of Arkéa-B&B Hotels, and Romain Bardet of DSM-Firmenich. They started the Col de Turini 40 seconds behind the leading trio and just over 1 minute ahead of the GC group. Champoussin was dropped but the four chasers caught the leaders with 9KM to climb and 82KM to the finish. Kevin Geniets of Groupama-FDJ, Jasper Stuyven of Lidl-Trek and Tobias Johannessen of Uno-X Mobility bridged up to the break with 74KM to go, 1KM to the top of Turini to make a group of 10. Their lead was 4 minutes 35 seconds as Carapaz led them over the top with the Col de la Colmiane to come. The break still had 4 minutes at the start of the Col de la Colmiane, Soudal Quickstep were leading the bunch. Tratnik was first to attack from the break with 4.5KM to climb but it came back together. Carapaz took the points over la Colmiane to make it mathematically impossible to lose the jersey. Their lead had been cut to under 3 minutes with 36KM to go with only the Col de la Couillole remaining. The break started the final climb of the Tour de France for 2024 with their gap still just under 3 minutes. Mas was the first to attack at 11.5KM to go. Carapaz went with him and the pair worked to keep the peloton at bay, now at 2 minutes 15 seconds. In the GC group, Mikel Landa of Soudal Quickstep took over from Jan Hirt to start his pull for Remco Evenepoel. Landa quickly dropped a number of riders, leaving just seven in the group with 9KM to go. Evenepoel put in a testing attack at 7KM to go but it was not committed and the top riders stayed together. João Almeida of UAE took over, riding hard just 90 seconds behind Carapaz and Mas with 6KM to go. Evenepoel made a much stronger move at 4.8KM to go but Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard were right there. The moment Evenepoel let off the gas, Vingegaard attacked, sending Evenepoel out the back. Vingegaard continued pushing, catching Mas and Carapaz with 2.5KM to go. Mas was dropped at 2KM to go, Carapaz hung on to Vingegaard and Pogačar but cracked 800M from the line. Pogačar led Vingegaard into 200M and started his sprint. Vingegaard did not get out of the saddle giving Pogačar his fifth stage win. Vingegaard came in 7 seconds later with Carapaz in third. Evenepoel was next across the line 53 seconds behind.