Dan Martin on cusp of 15th Grand Tour finish | Sticky Bottle

*Dan Martin in TT mode on the road into Saint-Emilion today. The Irishman will finish his 15th Grand Tour tomorrow into Paris (Photo: Pauline Ballet)*

Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) has won the stage 20 TT in the Tour de France today, topping a podium that did not include Tadej Pogačar (UAE-Team Emirates). Van Aert went around the mainly flat 30.8km course into Saint-Émilion in a time of 35:53, averaging exactly 50.5km per hour.

Kasper Asgreen (Deceuninck-QuickStep) showed he’s coming out of the Tour in great
condition; the Danish rider taking 2nd place at 21 seconds. Jonas
Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma), the
24-year-old Dane who has been the revelation of the race, was 3rd at 32
seconds.

Pogačar, who had over five minutes in hand in the GC at the start of the day and had no need to take any chances, was 8th in today’s test. He lost 57 seconds to Van Aert.

Ireland’s Dan Martin (Israel Start-Up Nation) is now riding to just finish the Tour, and with one eye on the Olympics, was 92nd today at 4:33. He will complete his 15th Grand Tour tomorrow in Paris and then go to Tokyo to represented Ireland in the road race.

*Wout van Aert on the win to victory in the stage 20 TT at the Tour de France today; a performance that underlines his status as a hot favourite for the TT in the Olympic Games (Photo: Pauline Ballet)*

Race leader Pogačar goes into tomorrow’s final stage into Paris some 5:20 up on Vingegaard, with Richard Carapaz (Ineos Grenadiers) in 3rd at 7:03. Carapaz finished 23rd today at 2:09, with his team placing just one rider in the top 10 on the stage; Dylan van Baarle in 10th at 1:21.

Related News

Lara Gillespie attacks Dolomite stage as Giro hits high mountains

Video - Ireland's Meehan climbs with best on brutal Alpine terrain

Ben O’Connor, the 25-year-old Australian, has held his 4th
place overall for AG2R Citroën; some 10:02 down on the race
leader.

Wilco Kelderman (Bora-hansgrohe) started today in 5th overall, just 32 seconds down on O’Connor. The Dutch rider was fancied to leapfrog O’Connor in the GC today. While the gap between the two was reduced to just 11 seconds, O’Connor holds 4^th.

The final yellow jersey was already in the bag for Tadej Pogačar (UAE-Team Emirates) but today the size of the achievement, winning his second Tour de France aged 22 years, really sank in (Photo: Pauline Ballet)

There were no changes to the top 10
overall after today’s TT and only one change to the top 20; Bauke Mollema
(Trek-Segafredo) moving up one place to 20th at the expense
of Sergio Higuita (EF Education-Nippo).

All eyes will now
turn to Paris tomorrow to see if Mark Cavendish can take another win – his fifth
on the race. If the Deceuninck-QuickStep rider wins he would bring his
career tally on the Tour to 35 wins.

That would be a new record and one more than Eddy Merckx,
whose record of 34 victories has already been equaled by Cavendish on this Tour.
However, Merckx won his stages in sprints, mountain stages and TTs while
Cavendish has taken all of his wins in bunch sprints.