Tour de France 2019: stage 20 – live!

26km to go: Périchon has rejoined the leaders, so there’s now a front five. “25km to decide a brilliant Tour, and despite it feeling like Bernal holds all the cards, the last few days has shown no one knows anything,” writes Guy Hornsby. “I really feel for Alaphilippe, but fear he may have burnt himself on the descent only to be completely distanced on the final climb. He’s been utterly gracious. In fact, Rowe/Martin aside it’s been a pretty calm Tour. What a final shoot out we have, strap yourselves in!”

28km to go: There is now a front four, composed of Nibali, Gallopin, Ilnur Zakarin and Michael Woods. Alaphilippe, it seems, is aiming to keep his place on the podium rather than attack in search of that yellow jersey.

30km to go: We follow a motorbike as he accelerates past the peloton, which is strung out all over the place. There are a couple of Ineos riders among the stragglers already: Michal Kwiatkowski and Gianni Moscon.

40km to go: Soggy whoppers? That’s terrifying.

31km to go: Three riders have broken clear at the front, including Pierre-Luc Périchon and Vincenzo Nibali.

33km to go: The climb has begun! Of the 29 people in the breakaway Sebastian Reichenbach is the best placed in the GC standings, sitting as he does in 18th place, 41 minutes behind Bernal.

35km to go: Two Lotto Soudal riders, Thomas de Gendt and Tim Wellens, are trying to join the leaders, who have now amalgamated into one large group, 2min 30sec ahead of the peloton. Wellens is 12 points behind Romain Bardet in the race to the polka dot jersey, and needs to ace this climb if he is to win it.

38km to go: Just a few kilometres now from the start of the climb, which is when the real action is going to happen.

43k to go: The front six is made up of Cort, Dylan Teuns, Rui Costa, Alberto Bettiol, Kevin Van Melsen and Lilian Calmejane.

45km to go: The leading group continues to pull clear of the peloton, with the gap now at 1min 40sec. There is a further group of 23 about 30sec ahead of the peloton.

51km to go: Ineos are at the front of the peloton, in control. A few more riders have bridged the gap to the leading group, but none of them are GC contenders.

54km to go: Five riders went with Cort, and they’ve established a small advantage “That weather in Val Thorens has nothing on what university bike racers face in the northeast US,” writes David Singerman. “I remember one surreal day of racing into headwinds so strong that you needed your littlest gear just to crawl downhill, and when the course looped and the headwinds became tailwinds you upshifted all the way to avoid spinning out at 40mph while flying uphill. Oh and also rain was bucketing down, so you could actually see the wind coming because the gusts stood up actual waves in the four inches of standing water on the road. Bernal and co. will be fine.”

56km to go: Magnus Cort is at the front at the moment, not that it means a great deal.

58km to go: The race has almost immediately turned onto a dual carriageway, allowing everyone loads of space in which to do anything.

59km to go: The yellow flag has been waved, and they’re off!

The rollout has started to roll. It’s due to last just a few kilometres.

Here’s the general classification, as it stands. There could be some changes to those podium positions today.

Nobody has reported this on British TV, but I suppose you never know.

I think it’s safe to say today’s mini-stage is happening. It’s due to start in about seven minutes.

A few hours ago the picture was considerably grimmer. I’m hearing it has improved sufficiently for the shortened stage to be completed.

I’ve already read that the caravan is not going to be running today. These guys are saying that the entire stage is off:

This year’s tour has been gripping, but yesterday it took a turn for the ridiculous. It was the four-overthrows-off-Ben-Stokes’s-bat of stage cycling, as a blizzard – a blizzard – forced stage 19 to be abruptly curtailed, and left today’s 20th stage shrouded in uncertainty. So much so that even after the stage was rerouted and massively shortened, nobody quite knew if that would be enough. Even this afternoon, about an hour before the scheduled start, the teams weren’t entirely sure where, when or even if it would happen.

So, hello. Let’s hope we get some cycling to watch, but either way, I’ll let you know what’s happening – or, indeed, if nothing is.