La Course 2018: action from the Alps – live!

17 July 2018 09:53
Wiggins stirs pot with warning of leadership battle at SkyDeignan will lead Trek’s new women’s cycling teamAnd feel free to email John or tweet him @John_Ashdown 10.53am BST They crest the Col de Romme and begin the descent – just 4km to the foot of the Colomibière. 10.50am BST Tayler Wiles is another of the big names in the elite group that is down to 11 or 12 riders after those attacks. Lucinda Brand is also there, as are Katarzyna Niewiadoma, Katie Hall and Victoria Margarita Garcia. 10.48am BST Uttrup Ludwig eases past Thomas as the summit approaches but the gap back to the favourites group has tumbled to just 33 seconds. 10.46am BST Amanda Spratt attacks from the pack and is followed by Ashleigh Moolman. It’s a move that has splintered an already select group even further. Megan Guarnier joins the attack. 10.44am BST Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig bridges to Leah Thomas with 2km to the summit. 10.40am BST Ludwig blasts past Kirchmann and hares off after Thomas. 10.37am BST An attack from the front of the bunch – Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig of Cervélo-Bigla launches off and quickly makes ground on the two riders ahead. 10.32am BST Five kilometres to the summit – nearly halfway – and the gap has halved since the foot of the climb. 10.29am BST Annemiek van Vleuten, last year’s winner and winner of the Giro Rosa on Sunday, and Anna van der Breggen, the other big favourite for the race today, are both in the chasing bunch. Who are just 50 seconds behind Thomas now. 10.26am BST Thomas looks strong but the gap to the main bunch – containing fewer than 20 riders – is down to 1min 11sec. 10.25am BST Indeed the leading group is no longer really a group. Thomas has steadily pulled away off the front, Kirchmann can’t keep pace and nor can Malgorzata. 10.24am BST The strongest of the three up front seems to be the American Leah Thomas, who is leading the group uphill. Meanwhile, Chantal Blaak the road world champion, is being dropped off the back of the peloton. 10.21am BST Up at the front of the race it looks like Finland’s Lotta Lepisto has cracked. And then there were three … 10.19am BST The kilometres one, two and three of this 11km are incredibly stiff with average gradients of 9.8, 10.5 and 9.1%. As the peloton hits the foot of the hill, little gaps immediately start to form. 10.15am BST The break is just approaching the foot of the Col de Romme, which you can see on the men’s Tour route map below forming the first part of a brutal double-header with the Colombière (just to be clear – the women haven’t cycled the full stage). Like the men, the women racers don’t finish on top of the final climb – there’s a 14km run down to Grand-Bornard afterwards. 10.06am BST Hello all and welcome to live coverage of the business end of La Course. The racers have just over 40km to go, which may not sound like much but it does include the two big climbs of the race – the category one Col de Romme followed by the steep and storied Col de la Colombiere. As it stands we have a breakaway of four riders with an advantage of just over two minutes: Leah Thomas of UHC, Malgorzata Jasinska of Movistar, Leah Kirchmann of Sunweb and Lotta Lepisto of Cervelo-Bigla. Continue readingread full article

Source: TheGuardian