Juan Manuel Garate's stage victory was the only surprise on a horror-climb that left it "as you were" at the top of the general classification
A man in tight shorts tackles Mont Ventoux. It's disturbingly similar to the picture that was here earlier, but apparently a woman in a thong doing the exact same thing is "offensive". [Shakes head wearily] I don't know ... you can judge for yourself below. Photograph: Peter Dejong/AP
Good afternoon. With serious illness, a bad accident or some other unforeseen disaster being all that separate Spain's Alberto Contador from winning this year's Tour, today's stage is all about the race to see who'll join him on the podium in Paris tomorrow afternoon.
The climb to hell that is Mont Ventoux will be sorting out the men from the boys this afternoon, prior to tomorrow's celebratory procession to Paris, where the sprinters will be left to duke it out on the cobbles of the Champs-Élysées to see who gets to finish runner-up behind Mark Cavendish in the final stage.
But on general classification, where it really matters, Andy Schleck has second place all but sewn up. Seven-times winner of this race, Lance Armstrong is currently sitting pretty in the bronze medal position, but will be keeping his eyes peeled for the UK rider Bradley Wiggins, the climbing revelation of this year's Tour who is 15 seconds behind in fourth. While Wiggins has no choice but to attack Armstrong today, he'll also need to be wary of the American's Astana team-mate Andreas Kloeden, who is only two seconds behind him. Another 21 seconds behind, Andy Schleck's older brother, Frank is the only other rider entertaining realistic hope of nailing a top-three finish on GC.
Expect to see attack after attack today as (a) Astana do everything within their power to ensure Contador, Armstrong and Kloeden make it a 1-2-3 in Paris, (b) Saxo Bank try to get Schleck the Elder on to the podium alongside his younger brother and (c) Garmin try to improve the position of their man Wiggins.
I'll be back to begin coverage of the stage at 12.15pm, but in the meantime, here's some other stuff you might like.
• Richard Williams on the conspicuous absence of drug scandals in this year's Tour ... so far.
• Bradley Wiggins on Twitter (note decidedly unsubtle dig at Mark Cavendish on 9.05am on 22 July).
• Our all-singing, all-dancing Tour De France 2009 special report
• The official Tour website
General Classification
1. Alberto Contador (Spain/Astana) 77hr 06min 18sec
2. Andy Schleck (Luxembourg/Saxo Bank) +4:11
3. Lance Armstrong (U.S./Astana) +5:21
4. Bradley Wiggins (Britain/Garmin) +5:36
5. Andreas Kloeden (Germany/Astana) +5:38
6. Frank Schleck (Luxembourg/Saxo Bank) +5:59
7. Vincenzo Nibali (Italy/Liquigas) +7:15
8. Christian Vande Velde (US/ Garmin) +10:08
9. Christophe Le Mevel (France/Francaise des Jeux) +12:37
10. Mikel Astarloza (Spain/Euskaltel) +12:38
Today's fashions
Yellow jersey: Alberto Contador (Spa/Astana)
Green jersey: Thor Hushovd (Nor/Cervelo)
Polka dot jersey: Franco Pellizotti (Ita/Liquigas)
White jersey: Andy Schleck (Lux/Saxo Bank)
Montelimar to Mont Ventoux
It's probably no exaggeration to say that many of the riders on this year's Tour – non-climber Mark Cavendish foremost among them - will have had recurring nightmares about the ordeal facing them today: a 167km stage that culminates in a nightmarish 1,800m climb up the desolate face of Mont Ventoux, the highest point in Provence.
Seven-times a stage finish in its 95 million year existence, Mont Ventoux boasts a Mediterranean forest at its base, much Alpine flora at its summit and – on a sunny Saturday afternoon in July at least - nothing but scorching hot rock in between. Literally and metaphorically, there's nowhere to hide.
With no shelter to protect them from the elements, the remaining 156 riders in this year's Tour will have to contend with searing heat beating down on their necks from above (and up into their faces from the baking road below) as they try to pedal their way up an often vertical looking mountainside most sane folk wouldn't attempt to negotiate in a small car.
Expect the field to finish strung out like Tuesday's washing, while the winner of today's stage will almost certainly come from the top five on GC. I don't know about you, but the sadist in me can't wait to spend the afternoon watching them suffer. Alberto Contador will probably cross the line first, but in the quest for value, my (very small amount of) money is on Lance Armstrong to conquer Mont Ventoux for the first time.
Today's stage so far ... With 64km behind them, a 16-man breakaway containing nobody of any consequence as far as GC is concerned has opened up a 9min 10sec lead on the peloton, with the Astana and Garmion teams leading the chase. Bradley Wiggins has already had to drop out of the peloton twice with mechanical problems but his team-mates have helped him back on both occasions.
The race for the green jersey: Thor Hushovd is currently swaddled in the points jersey and is almost certain to hold on to it, as his only rival, Mark Cavendish is extremely unlikely to be contesting any of the 53 remaining points that are up for grabs in today's stage.
12.34pm The 16-man breakaway has just crossed the Col d'Ey, a third category climb that peaked at the 65.5km mark of today's stage. Franco Pellizotti, who is not in this group, need only finish the race tomorrow to guarantee himself the polka-dot King of the Mountains jersey.
Weather report: It's 23 degrees celsius on the road, but that howling sound you can hear is a strong wind with gusts of over 110mph up at the summit of Ventoux, which could make things very interesting indeed.
Some footage of Lance Armstrong and the late Marco Pantani tackling the summit of Mont Ventoux in 2002, just to give you a feel for what it's like.
12.45pm: The gap between the 16-man breakaway and the peloton is down to 8min 48sec. William Bonnet, Maxime Bouet, Cyril Lemoine, Albert Timmer and Tony Martin are among the 16, as is Aleksandr Kuschnyinski, who has just rejoined them after stoping for a wee. There are three different routes up Mont Ventoux on a bicycle, all of them unpleasant, but according to Eurosport co-commentator Sean Kelly, today's is the worst by a considerable margin.
Your emails are flooding in: So far I've had one, from Alan Brooks ... correcting a spelling. Bah!
Your emails are flooding in II: Sorry, Allan Brooks. Double bah!
12.50pm: Astana are no longer leading the peloton, having made way for the Saxo Bank team of the Schleck brothers. There's currently 8min 25sec between the main bunch and the breakaway, which contains Juan Manuel Garate and Christophe Riblon among its notables (notables being cyclists I've heard of).
12.53pm: The gap between the breakaway and the peloton has increased to 10min 19sec. I'm going to have to switch over to ITV4's coverage when it begins at 1pm, as something's gone wrong with the Eurosport in our office, meaning I'm working off sound alone at the moment. This is devastating news for those of us were looking forward to passing off the erudite musings of former Irish cyclist Sean Kelly as our own for the rest of the afternoon.
Stat attack: The leaders covered 39.1km in the second hour of the race, making their average speed for the first two hours 41.2km per hour.
1.06pm: The stage leaders have just crossed the third climb of the day, the Col de Fontaube.
1.16pm: With 70km to go, Saxo-Bank are dragging the peloton along, trying to bridge the 9min 15sec gap that separates them from the 16-man breakaway.
1.25pm: The Garmin Slipstream team of Bradley Wiggins has moved to the front of the peloton and the gap between them and the breakaway is down to 9min 02sec. Alberto Contador, the Schleck brothers, Wiggins, Andreas Kloeden and Lance Armstrong are all sitting pretty towards the front of the main bunch, where they'll no doubt stay until reaching the foot of the ascent to Monteux, at which point all hell should break loose once they begin ramping up the steep first 9km.
1.29km: Apparently there's a forest fire at the foot of Mont Ventoux about 15km from the finish line of today's stage. With 500,000 spectators reported to be lining the route up the mountain, it could have been started by a rogue cigarette butt, somebody passing the time until the cyclists arrive by murdering ants with a magnifying glass and the sun, or with a jerrycan of petrol and a Zippo lighter. I'm not sure how bad it is, but there is a airplane used for firefighting flying overhead.
1.35pm: Approaching the Col des Abeilles (the Climb of the Honeybees) the breakaway group still has a lead of 8min 22sec, while the fire looks to be raging some distance from where the riders will be passing. The aforementioned airplane is dropping a mixture of water and chemicals on it, so hopefully there won't be any smoke blowing across the faces of the competitors when they beging their ascent of Ventoux. It'll be difficult enough for them to get up the damned thing without having to contend with the acrid stench of thick smoke choking their airways.
1.39pm: I was at a wedding in the east of France last week and had a couple of days in Paris, during which time I got to see assorted workmen erecting temporasry seating on the both sides of the Champs-Élysées for tomorrow's finale. For the benefit of anyone who's never been lucky enough to visit this particular Parisienne thoroughfare before, I can tell you it's very long, very wide and very cobbled.
Having been making the pace at the front of the peloton for some time now, Saxo Bank rider Stuart O'Grady, stands up on his pedals, has a bit of a stretch and then moves to one side to let somebody else do the donkey-work for a while. With 53km to go, the gap between the peloton and the breakaway is 8min 26sec.
1.45pm: The breakway group are on their way up the fourth climb of the day, the Col des Abeilles, after which they'll descend to the foot of Mont Ventoux, then begin their hellish 1,912m ascent to the finish line.
1.51pm: On the subject of my recent picture-change, Oliver James writes: "Perhaps the ladies in the audience prefer the rear view of a fit male cyclist," he says. "The Guardian should be more able to laugh at itself. Maybe I was enjoying it too much." Sorry about that Oliver, here's a little reminder of what you're missing.
1.56pm: Considering the numbers who turned out to watch Lance compared to the unnamed woman, it seems that Oliver James is wrong: the entire audience prefers the rear view of a fit male cyclist.
2pm: "Speaking as a lady cyclist, I think that picture is very funny," writes Catherine Otey. "That said, my husband is very upset that there's a photograph of me on your minute-by-minute report."
2.01pm: The breakaway group pedal over the summit of the Col des Abeilles and begin their descent into Mormoiron. After that it's uphill all the way. The gap to the peloton is 8min 31sec. I did Stuart O'Grady a grave injustice earlier - he's still doing mighty work dragging the peloton along behind him. Last year's Tour champion, Carlos Sastre, can be spotted up near the front of the peloton. He's a great climber who's had a fairly mediocre Tour this year, but he's made no secret of his desire to win this stage.
2.07pm: Freewheeling down towards the summit to Mont Ventoux, the breakaway group passes a fleet of fire engines screaming past them in the opposite direction. They're obviously en route to the forest fire that needs to be tackled.
2.13pm: His sterling afternoon's work done, Stuart O'Grady has slipped back into the bunch and left it to the Astana boys to make the pace at the front of the peloton as they descend the Col des Abeilles to the foot of Mont Venteux. Bradley Wiggins' Garmin team-mates are next in the queue, making sure their man gets a good position for the beginning of the climb. The gap between the peloton and the main bunch is 7min 53sec and dropping fast, as the breakaway group slow down in the hope that, if they take their time beginning the ascent to Mont Ventoux, it might go away.
2.17pm: "I assume the lady in your photograph is the race leader, as there's nobody in front of her. I wonder why," sniggers Ben Foskett, impressing nobody with his crass, laddish, juvenile end-of-pier humour.
2.20pm: Race on! With 27km to go and five to the beginning of the main climb, team Astana have taken advantage of some crosswinds to put the hammer down and split the main field, but Bradley Wiggins and both Schleck brothers were well positioned to go with them.
2.24pm: The big guns on General Classification - Alberto Contador, Andy Schleck, Lance Armstrong, Bradley Wiggins, Andreas Kloeden and Frank Schleck - are all positioned in a group of 41 riders that's rolling towards the beginning of the ascent to Mont Ventoux, 6min 15sec behind the breakaway group of 16 riders.
2.27pm: Time trial specialist Fabian Cancellara is gritting his teeth and pedalling furiously into a headwind as he drags the yellow jersey group onwards. His Saxo Bank team-mates are strung out behind him, followed by Alberto Contador's Astana team.
2.30pm: There's a furious wind blowing as Astana take to the front of the yellow jersey group. Everyone in the top 10 on General Classification is in that particular group and it's from this point that the loose ends of this year's Tour will be tied up. Fabian Cancellera tries to organise the riders into an echelon (pace line) to protect themselves from the wind as they approach the beginning of the climb to Ventoux.
2.35pm: Bradley Wiggins' Garmin Slipstream team are taking their turn at the front of the yellow jersey group, with assorted domestiques putting the hammer down and doing their bit to try and crack Astana's riders before running out of puff and dropping back to finish the climb in their own time.
2.36pm: The yellow jersey group, comprised of 24 riders almost exclusively from the Saxo-Bank, Garmin-Slipstream and Astana teams is strung out along the road, with Garmin rider David Millar making a furious pace at the front. It's shit-or-get-off-the-pot time for anyone who wants to finish on the podium in Paris tomorrow and they're only just beginning the 1,912m climb to the finish line. This is going to be brutal.
2.40pm: "You have me wrong," writes Ben Foskett (2.17pm). "I was just wondering how she was managing to stay ahead on what looks like a mountain bike." Well, it is a mountain she's ascending.
2.45pm: As things stand, the early breakaway group has been reduced to three men, who are 32 seconds ahead of the first-class train with all the main contenders on board. The peloton are a further 2min 50sec behind them, while the "bus" full of sprinters, the knackered and assorted other non-climbers who we need not concern ourselves with here, is another 1min 40sec behind them.
2.47pm: At the moment, the riders are cycling along a tree- and people-lined road. Soon the trees will be gone and only people will remain, affording little protection from the bufffeting winds.
2.50pm: Disregarding the breakaway they're reeling in, the one-two-three on general classification - Alberto Contador, Andy Schleck and Lance Armstrong - are in that order in the yellow jersey group on the road as their team-mates drop like flies. Frank Schleck attacks but is immediately covered by Lance Armstrong, who is looking very comfortable.
2.55pm: With their lieutenants and helpers going backwards, the top six in the Tour on GC are all that remain in the only group that matters.
2.55pm: Andy Schleck attacks and is immediately covered by Alberto Contador, who takes up residence on his back wheel. They've opened a 10-metre gap on the rest of the heavyweights as they continue passing assorted bits of detritus from the original 16-man breakaway.
2.32pm: Up, up, up they go, with Frank Schleck attacking from the front, only to look over his shoulder and see Lance Armstrong on his wheel. Andreas Kloeden has been dropped by the yellow jersey group, but is slowly clawing his way back.
Quick reminder: The two stage leaders on the road today are Tony Martin and Juan Manuel Garate, who have a 2min 15sec lead on the yellow jersey group, where the battle to win the Tou is being enacted. There's only 10km to go, but it's a steep 10k that'll take them the business end of 30 minutes to ride.
3pm: The yellow jersey group is now comprised of: Andy and Frank Schleck, Nibalo, Armstrong, Contador, Wiggins and ... barely ... Kloeden. Andy Schleck keeps trying to attack from the front in a bid to launch his brother up the mountain and on to the podium in Paris, but Lance Armstrong is watching Frank Schleck like a hawk.
3.05pm: Andy Schleck and Contador attack and are let go. Nibali makes a break to try and bridge the gap. He needs to make up over two minutes on Armstrong to get third place overall.
3.07pm: Andy Schleck, Contador and Nibali are 1min 46sec behind Martin and Garate, the stage leaders on the road. Schlkeck keeps looking over his shoulder trying to see where he's brother is, wondering how he can help him. He's 16 seconds behind in a group with Armstrong, Wiggins and Kloeden.
3.10pm: It looks like Contador and Andy Schleck will soon catch Garate and Martin and be the one-two on the road as well as on general classification. Andy is continuously looking over his shoulder, wondering where his brother is, and seems bewildered by the fact that he's not in sight.
3.12pm: Andy Schleck, Contador and Nibali have slowed right down, with Schleck unsure what to do as he's unable to shake off Contador and improve his own position on GC, but also unable to help his brother overtake Lance Armstrong because he's 10 seconds down the road. He decides to sit up and wait: brotherly love ... isn't that sweet?
3.15pm: It's must be like like cycling through the queue for a proviincial nightclub, with the roads lined five or six deep with jabbering drunken idiots as the riders grit their teeth and continue their ascent. Only five kilometres to the summit.
3.19pm: In the betting in-running, Tony Martin and Juan Manuel Garate are joint favourites to win the stage, as polka dot jersey occupant Franco Pellizotti thunders towards them. Where the devil did he come from?
3.20pm: In the yellow jersey group, Andy Schleck attacks again, taking brother Frank with him. Armstrong, Contadore and Wiggins immediately get on their wheels and the look on Frank Schleck's face when he looks over his shoulder and sees Armstrong on his wheel is priceless. Kloeden has dropped out the back of the yellow jersey group.
3.21pm: Bradley Wiggins looks to have cracked. He's been unhitched from the yellow jersey train and is struggling to stay in touch.
3.23pm: In the yellow jersey group, Andy Schleck continues shovelling coal on to the furnace, while Bradley Wiggins continues losing touch at the back. He'll lose fourth place if he finishes 24 or more seconds behind Frank Schleck.
3.25pm: Brilliant riding from Bradley Wiggins, who drags himself back into the yellow jersey group. Up the road, King of the Mountains Franco Pellizotti's face is a picture of agony as he attempts to bridge the gap between himself and stage leaders Tony Martin and Juan Manuel Garate.
3.26pm: Andy Schleck attacks from the front of the yellow jersey group, taking Contador and Armstrong with him, but leaving brother Frank behind. At the back of the group, Wiggins and Nibali are slipping out the back door.
3.30pm: A kilometre from the summit, Juan Manuel Garate has gone for glory, but been pegged back by Tony Martin - if either of them takes the stage win, it'll be a sensational victory. Franco Pellizotti is 38 seconds behind them and the yellow jersey group is a further 10 seconds behind him,
3.31pm:Juan Manuel Garate has led from start to finish of this stage and crosses the line triumphantly, just ahead of Tony Martin. Andy Schleck, Alberto Contador and - in no particular order - Lance Armstrong, Frank Schleck, Vincenzo Nibali and Pelizotti are next over ... but where's Bradley Wiggins?
3.33pm: Wiggins pedals over the finish line looking absolutely exhausted. The commentators on ITV seem to think he's done enough to hold on to fourth place on general classification, but aren't quite sure and will let us know after a commercial break.
Good news for Bradley Wiggins After a brave ride, it turns out he only lost 20 seconds on Frank Schleck, which means he'll keep his fourth spot on general classification going into tomorrow's final stage.
The stage result
1. Juan Manuel Garate (Spain/Rabobank) 4hr 39min 21sec
2. Tony Martin (Ger/THR) +3sec
3. Andy Schleck (Lux/Saxo-Bank) + 38sec
4. Alberto Contador (Spa/Astana) +38sec
5. Lance Armstrong (USA/Astana) + 41sec
6. Frank Schleck (Lux/Saxo-Bank) +43
7. Roman Kreuziger (Cze/Liquigas) +46
8. Franco Pellizotti (Ita/Liquigas) +56
9. Vincenzo Nibali (Ita/Liquigas) +58
10. Bradley Wiggins (GBR/Garmin-Slipstream)
The top five overall with one stage to go
1. Alberto Contador
2. Andy Schleck +4min 11sec
3. Lance Armstrong +5min 24sec
4. Bradley Wiggins +6min 01sec
5. Frank Schleck +6min 04sec
Yellow jersey: Alberto Contador (Spa/Astana)
Green jersey: Thor Hushovd (Nor/Cervelo)
Polka dot jersey: Franco Pellizotti (Ita/Liquigas)
White jersey: Andy Schleck (Lux/Saxo Bank)
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