Tour de France stage 15 - Live coverage

Good morning and welcome along as we hit one of the most important days of this Tour de France. It's a major mountain stage in the Pyrenees, with 4500 metres of elevation gain on the road to Andorra, which is already home to a large community of professional cyclists. It's the end of the second week, it's hot, it's bound to be chaotic again, and the parcours is demanding enough to drive significant differences between the general classification contenders. 

This is the scene in Céret this morning. The roll-out is coming up at 12:20 local time, and the stage proper will be waved underway around 10 minutes after that.

Before we get going, now's the time to catch up on yesterday's action. 

Stage 14: Report, results, photos

The interesting thing about yesterday was the way Guillaume Martin casually slipped into the break and rose to second overall. That's the second time that's happened in a week, after Ben O'Connor did the same in the Alps. Race leader Tadej Pogačar has enough of a buffer that he doesn't need to worry too much about those guys, but usually on the Tour we'd see responses from the teams of lower-placed riders protecting their podiums, top-fives, or even top-tens. That sort of conservatism hasn't happened yet in this Tour and despite there being an overwhelming front-runner, this race does still feel open and sort of exciting. 

Speaking of which, today's stage is going to be particularly difficult to manage. It will take something to top the chaos we saw in the Alps last weekend but there'll be a huge amount of interest in the breakaway, given the success breaks are enjoying on this Tour (partly due to Pogacar being so far out in front), and given this is a big day for the mountains classification (so expect Quintana, Woods, Poels to all be up there). 

What's more, we start with a climb. It's not categorised, but would be on most other stages. It's sure to be an explosive one, with riders everywhere, and UAE will have a big job on their hands trying to get this to settle. 

That climb will ensure plenty of riders are on the rollers this morning, warming up.

After that come the major climbs. There's nothing massively jagged here, just a steady accrual of some seriously heavy elevation gain. The first climb and the long road up to the Port d'Envalira (which is split into two climbs) are grinding climbs on wide well-surfaced roads, although the altitude on the latter (2400m) will play a significant factor. After that, it's the rather more punchy Col de Beixalis, which is where we're likely to see the big moves being made ahead of the descent into town.

We do have an actual preview of today's stage, which is here.

We also have our feature preview of this weekend as a whole, which is still relevant I promise. 

Tour de France podium battle resumes in the Pyrenees - Preview

Aside from the elevation gain, today we have altitude and we have heat - two factors that can throw certain riders well off balance. There have been murmurs of Pogačar not being overly comfortable in the heat, and there was maybe a hint of that on Ventoux. That maybe sounds stretchingly hopeful of a true yellow jersey battle, but you never know.

We're off!

The riders reach kilometre-zero bang on time and we are racing

Woods, as expected, is straight on the attack. He's in the polka-dot jersey after his efforts yesterday.

Quintana is now moving up but nothing is going clear for now.

Thomas De Gendt is on the move now.

De Gendt has struggled at this Tour so far and has even suggested his best form is no longer good enough to let rip in the breaks in the way that has made his name. But he looks better here. He's well clear solo

Dylan van Baarle (Ineos) is among a counter-attack. Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) shows himself now.

The peloton is fully lined out on this opening uncategorised climb

Powless is active in the counter but the peloton is right behind.

De Gendt is 18 seconds clear

Aurelien Paret-Peintre (AG2R) attacks now. He's 13th overall. 

Nacer Bouhanni dropped. 

And so is Cees Bol, who like Bouhanni, struggled at the back to make the time cut yesterday. Max Walscheid is with them and they could struggle to make the cut today.

Dan Martin, Steven Kruijswijk, Ruben Guerreiro join up with Paret-Peintre.

Dylan Teuns bridges across too.

And now two more make it over - Julien Bernard and Sergio Henao

They look to be clear but Fraile launches another attack from the bunch.

Van Aert joins Fraile as the Spanish champion kicks again.

Things calm down in the bunch but then Lukas Postlberger sets off and now Alaphilippe and Elissonde react.

Van Aert responds again and is now on the front.

Van Aert knocks it off and now Latour attacks. Alaphilippe goes after him.

Van Aert jumps on it once again. Valverde is there too.

De Gendt has been caught by that chase group with Teuns and Dan Martin, so there are now eight riders out front, 25 seconds clear of the fragmented bunch, with Postlberger in between.

Latour attacks once again. Poels jumps now

And that draws Woods out.

Van Aert is there as the group swells... and it's going clear.

The road is being blocked in the bunch. We're still climbing but this looks like the break going.

Some big names here. Alaphilippe, Van Aert, Nibali, Valverde, Van Baarle, Woods, Poels, and more. We'll have the full list shortly.

David Gaudu (FDJ) is in the move. He's the best-placed overall but is more than half an hour down after his off-day on Mont Ventoux.

We're descending now and most riders have got over that early climb in the peloton. Bol and Bouhanni have been dropped but Cavendish is still in there.

This is the chase group of 21

David Gaudu, Valentin Madouas, Bruno Armirail (Groupama-FDJ)

Wout van Aert, Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma),

Dylan van Baarle, Jonathan Castroviejo (Ineos Grenadiers)

Vincenzo Nibali, Kenny Elissonde (Trek-Segafredo)

Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-QuickStep)

Michael Woods (Israel Start-Up Nation)

Alejandro Valverde (Movistar)

Nairo Quintana (Arkéa-Samsic)

Wout Poels (Bahrain Victorious)

Michael Matthews (Team BikeExchange)

Pierre Latour (TotalEnergies)

Lukas Postlberger (Bora-Hansgrohe)

Ion Izaguirre (Astana-PremierTech)

Franck Bonnamour (B&B Hotels)

Mark Donovan (Team DSM) 

Ruben Fernández (Cofidis)

That big group is 25 seconds down on the eight leaders, so we should soon have a big day's breakaway of 28 riders, which is likely to go all the way.

The chase group is already lacking collaboration. Donovan and Postlberger have attacked and are going across to the leaders.

Earlier on the descent we had three more riders pop off from the peloton. They're now with the chase group - Davide Ballerini (Deceuninck-QuickStep), Neilson Powless (EF-Nippo), Matej Mohoric (Bahrain Victorious).

154km to go

There is a regrouping at the front as the chaser group comes together with the eight-man lead group. Around 30 out front with a lead of 3:50

We can also see Quintana in there, despite him not being announced over race radio. All the big players for the KOM jersey are up there.

Ok, so this is (I think) the breakaway now in its entirety

Wout van Aert, Steven Kruijswijk, Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma)

Dylan Teuns, Wout Poels, Matej Mohoric (Bahrain Victorious)

Vincenzo Nibali, Kenny Elissonde, Julien Bernard (Trek-Segafredo)

David Gaudu, Valentin Madouas, Bruno Armirail (Groupama-FDJ)

Dylan van Baarle, Jonathan Castroviejo (Ineos Grenadiers)

Julian Alaphilippe, Davide Ballerini (Deceuninck-QuickStep)

Michael Woods, Dan Martin (Israel Start-Up Nation)

Neilson Powless, Ruben Guerreiro (EF-Nippo)

Alejandro Valverde (Movistar)

Nairo Quintana (Arkéa-Samsic)

Michael Matthews (Team BikeExchange)

Pierre Latour (TotalEnergies)

Thomas De Gendt (Lotto Soudal)

Lukas Postlberger (Bora-Hansgrohe)

Ion Izaguirre (Astana-PremierTech)

Aurélian Paret-Peintre (AG2R Citroën)

Sergio Henao (Qhubeka-NextHash)

Mark Donovan (Team DSM) 

Ruben Fernández (Cofidis)

Franck Bonnamour (B&B Hotels)

This is an unruly breakaway and we're already seeing it split up.

Matthews, Kruijswijk, Nibali, Bernard, Powless, Ballerini have gone clear.

We're on a long drag up to the intermediate sprint, where Matthews will surely help himself to maximum point. 

145km to go

The peloton is now five minutes down and UAE have put their whole team on the front. 

UAE have Vegard Stake Laengen on the nose, the big Norwegian doing the early work in the valley. Then they have the likes of Rui Costa, Marc Hirschi, Mikkel Bjerg (who's had a really good Tour), Brandon McNulty, and Rafal Majka, who could be Pogacar's last man. He performed that role well on Ventoux but had a crash the other day. 

The gap between breaks is 10 seconds and Poels attacks to try and bridge it.

Poels makes it as another three jump.

Martin,  Van Baarle, and De Gendt have made it out front.

Postlberger and Bonnamour are on the charge now too.

138km to go

But now the whole breakaway comes back together.

FDJ are one of the teams with numbers in the break and they're now using Armirail to drive it on. They missed those splits before and don't want that to happen again. They'll also want to try and carve out a stage-winning advantage before we start the proper climbing.

Breakaway artists are having a good Tour, aren't they? 

Our Procycling magazine colleagues are scribbling daily analysis pieces for us and the latest from Adam Becket focuses on escape tactics, all wrapped up in a Takeshi's Castle analogy. What more could you want?

Tour de France stage 14 analysis: breakaway riding is more than just luck

This is the particular challenge referenced in the piece. It's called 'knock knock' and it's brilliant.

We interrupt the Takeshi talk to bring you the intermediate sprint. Matthews the favourite here - will anyone challenge him? Ballerini might try to take points away in the interests of green jersey wearer Cavendish

Matthews opens up and he's challenged by Ballerini and De Gendt.

Matthews just gets it, pipping De Gendt, with Ballerini third.

122km to go

The gap is up to 8:30 at the intermediate sprint. The road now continues to rise to our first categorised climb, and even beyond it.

Anyway, back to the important stuff... which is your favourite Takeshi's Castle game?

Skipping stones is an obvious classic but also have a big soft spot for the rice bowl slide and also the one where they spin round on that little surfboard jumping over things. 

Your thoughts - plus thoughts/predictions on today's cycling of course - to us on Twitter @paddyfletch (opens in new tab)

Here's the new points classification after that sprint

Cavendish - 279

Matthews - 207

Philipsen - 174

Colbrelli - 159

Alaphilippe - 131

Madouas is dropped from the break. FDJ have been doing all the work in the break but it was Armirail doing the bulk of it, so that's a surprise. Armirail is still around, as of course is Gaudu.

114km to go

We're a kilometre away from the foot of our first climb. It's the cat-1 Montée de Mont-Louis. It's 8.4km long with an average gradient of 5.7%.

This looks like the last day on the Tour for Nacer Bouhanni. He has been dropped on this rise towards the first climb and is already more than 20 minutes behind the lead group, and 9 minutes behind the peloton. 

Bouhanni crashed on stage 13 and suffered at the back yesterday as well. Today's stage is so much more unforgiving and he's already so far down before the real climbing has begun. Cavendish and the other sprinters are still in the peloton. The time cut will be in the region of 45 minutes today. 

France TV have grabbed a word with Bouhanni's team boss. 

"He was willing to keep going after his crash two days ago, I'm afraid it's a too hard day for him but he gives everything."

It's official, Nacer Bouhanni has abandoned.

Bouhanni abandoned after the intermediate sprint where he was timed more than 20 minutes down on the break.

Bouhanni has been suffering with crash injuries and suffered massively on Saturday. He was dropped early today and never got back to the peloton. 

Bouhanni completed the 2017 Tour de France but has pulled out on three other occasions. 

This year was arguably his best Tour with three top 3 placings, including second to Mark Cavendish on stage 4 to Fougères. 

He was injured the big crash on stage 13 when a number of riders went off the road into a ravine.

As the Montée de Mont-Louis begins in earnest, Mark Cavendish and several Deceuninck-QuickStep teammates have been distanced from the peloton.

They are riding a paced effort to ensure they finish inside the time limit. 

With 3km to go to the summit of the Montée de Mont-Louis, the Groupama-FDJ riders continue to drive the break along for Gaudu. 

These are the riders in the break. 

Wout van Aert, Steven Kruijswijk, Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma)

Dylan Teuns, Wout Poels, Matej Mohoric (Bahrain Victorious)

Vincenzo Nibali, Kenny Elissonde, Julien Bernard (Trek-Segafredo)

David Gaudu, Bruno Armirail (Groupama-FDJ)

Dylan van Baarle, Jonathan Castroviejo (Ineos Grenadiers)

Julian Alaphilippe, Davide Ballerini (Deceuninck-QuickStep)

Michael Woods, Dan Martin (Israel Start-Up Nation)

Neilson Powless, Ruben Guerreiro (EF-Nippo)

Alejandro Valverde (Movistar)

Nairo Quintana (Arkéa-Samsic)

Michael Matthews (Team BikeExchange)

Pierre Latour (TotalEnergies)

Thomas De Gendt (Lotto Soudal)

Lukas Postlberger (Bora-Hansgrohe)

Ion Izaguirre (Astana-PremierTech)

Aurélian Paret-Peintre (AG2R Citroën)

Sergio Henao (Qhubeka-NextHash)

Mark Donovan (Team DSM) 

Ruben Fernández (Cofidis)

Franck Bonnamour (B&B Hotels)

Though some riders are suffering and being dripped, as they are at the back of the peloton. 

The peloton is almost nine minutes behind the break now.

Of course non e of the riders in the break are a threat to race leader Tadej Pogacar.

Aurélien Paret-Painter (AG2R Citroën) is the closest but he is at 24:44.