Battle in the alps! 🍿 | Men's Tour de France Stage 18 Race Highlights |

Bonjour et bienvenue, welcome to Voiron, where yesterday Josper Philips won the stage in the gap between him and Pedersen is down to just seven points in the battle for green. Vibes were good, autographs were handed out and we see the jerseys on the front row with Pedersen, Pogacar and Del Toro and also Valentin Parapanth who's got those polka dots on loan from Pogacar. This is the stage 185 kilometers from Voiron to Orchères-sur-Merlette, a town with a lot of history. 1971 the iconic battle between Ocaña and Merckx, in 2020 the first time Pogacar was on a tour podium. Today might be the last breakaway stage and the possibility for a win but I think we're ready to go all in. It's a good chance for us, of course for a lot of other guys as well and that helps because then we can hopefully establish a strong breakaway and go to the end and then fight it out on the last climb. After the time trial you said that you found your legs, I guess they're still there and this could be a good day for you. Yeah but already like I said the whole tour and at the start of the tour after doing such a hard Giro GC and especially with this crazy heat that we had in this tour the body is just a lot of ups and downs and today could be an up could be a down so we're all human beings and it's really hard to predict. I think the goal of today should be to start tomorrow with the same time as us today so to not lose any time and just get through the day well and safely and then from tomorrow on I mean it will be a different type of racing than today but for us the goal is to arrive where I start today. Nice stage, nice memory from six years ago but yeah let's enjoy today and try to save some energy for tomorrow and the day after. Bogacar was second in 2020 behind Primoz Roglic. Can he do one better today? Well no because UE team emirates exergy have got some illness around the team. Brandon McNulty the first to get dropped, he even had to abandon the race and Tim Velence crossed the line only a few minutes within the time cut. So UE team emirates were not controlling the race and that was good news for all those riders who wanted to get in a breakaway including Mess Pedersen. Yes yet again in that green jersey going for those points but the intermediate sprint is at 56 kilometers. He has to climb three categorized climbs to get to that point but Pedersen he is on a roll. Romain Grégoire here joining that group, the French national champion. We also find Felix Engelhardt there, Arendtsman, Tobias Halland-Johannesson, Castrillo, Breuer and Jorgensen. Bernal is making his way across to a group with Valentin Parépintere. In that group we also find Richard Carapaz. Parépintere he's wearing those polka dots but he is 24 points behind Bogacar in that classification but we've got 29 points on offer today. On the first climb of the day, the first category one, Valentin Parépintere already picked up 10 points and this is the second one of the day, the Cote du Monténard and another five points there for the French rider and that means that the gap is down to just nine points. We have a group of 14 riders at the front and a chasing group of no less than 28 but they never really make it across. The smallest gap was 22 seconds. Mes Pedersen makes it across the line first of course for the points classification, 25 points for him and that means that the gap between him and Philipsen is up to 32 again. After that intermediate sprint we have this decisive move with Engelhardt leading that group and two vital players not in the group just yet, Carapaz and Parépintere but they make it across in the end. Job done for Mes Pedersen, another phenomenal effort there by the Danish rider and this is now our first group with Haaland-Johannesson, with Garcia-Piernat, with Jorgensen, with Carapaz, with Schmitz and they are going to battle it out for the stage win here on that final climb to Orsier-Merlet. First attack here by Richard Carapaz on the inside of the corner, the steepest part of the road but Parépintere quickly counters him and everything is back together apart from Garcia-Piernat who has to let go meaning we've got five riders left at the front at this point and then another attack here by Richard Carapaz, he is really upping the pace, Parépintere follows with Schmitz and Jorgensen and then yet again that tempo by the man from Ecuador and now nobody's reacting, they're looking at each other, they're looking at Carapaz and he is gone. Schmitz, Jorgensen and Parépintere they are not reacting and he's already got one hairpin after only 400 meters of attacking and it will be enough, he's going to get a bigger gap on Schmitz and Jorgensen and Parépintere who needed those 10 points and the stage win to get the polka dots even has to let Jorgensen and Schmitz go. Another fantastic effort here by Carapaz who already won a stage two years ago in Superdébut he won the Giro, he was the Olympic champion and he wins stage 18 for EF Education Easypost. Mauro Schmitz and Matteo Jorgensen are going to sprint for the podium, another podium there for Mauro Schmitz after that stage win and third goes to Matteo Jorgensen. There's a fourth place for Parépintere and this is the group of favorites coming home with Martinez, with Skelmos, Ayuse, All the riders for that top 10 in GC are there but the man of the day is Richard Carapaz, the man from Ecuador, 33 years young, a second Tour de France stage win for him. Our top 10, the top six are Breakaway and then Castrillo just ahead of the group, our favorites with Martinez, Evenepoel and Pitcock at 4 to 35. At a certain point the gap was almost nine minutes and that would mean that Carapaz would move into potentially ninth place in GC but Pinarello Q36.5 and Tudor and also Total Energi managed to get that gap back down but Carapaz makes it into the top 10, no changes whatsoever between the top riders. We were all over the place, we were chasing things, there were moments where we thought it was lost, nobody gave up, he had three riders supporting him behind I mean I think this stage is probably quite a good example of how the whole tour has been for us, it's the result of eight riders and a lot of people's effort behind him and nobody ever gave up and flinched, nobody ever started thinking about Paris or what about this and they just kept going and I'm so glad that everybody got rewarded. Today I think you saw Carapaz rode up this last climb so I think yeah I knew at the bottom it would be extremely difficult but you never know so I was keeping, I tried but so in the end I think they did the best result possible today. Is this one of the hardest day on a bike for you? Yeah I think so, we did like 400 watts when we pulled the whole day and yeah we just never stopped so yeah chapeau to all the other guys in the breakaway and then I really hoped for more today but yeah I'll try again. You are not worried? Obviously yeah, it's one less rider and Adam is coming back better and better but yeah we still have today Nils was super good, Felix was incredible, really strong and Isaac also so in worst case scenario we manage and I think yeah we just need to see tomorrow how the guys wake up and yeah we go on. With Brandon good, with Tim good, with all these guys and with the 8c looking good I think it would be very hard for the break but yeah like you say I think everybody smells blood uh not for today then no one's worried about the overall but just for the stage and yeah it's it's motivating for me to know that there is like you know it's the Ace Ventura, the Jim Carrey thing you know like you're saying there's a chance. We've got four categorized climbs tomorrow including the Alpe d'Huez of the EUR category and there's only one point at the moment between Tadej Bogacar and Para Pantera. For the Slovenian rider it's not a goal for Para Pantera very much so. He can still wear the polka dots because Bogacar already has yellow but he has to go for the points tomorrow especially with the first two climbs being in the first 25 kilometers. It's an ultra short stage number 19 128 kilometers but four categorized climbs and a finish on the iconic Alpe d'Huez. It's going to be short, it's going to be fierce, it's going to be incredibly exciting. Who is going to conquer Alpe d'Huez and win stage 19? We'll find out on Friday.