Tour de France 2025 live: Route and updates today with sprinters facing battle to control stage 17 as race heads for the Alps – UK Times

94km to go: David Millar on ITV4 commentary suggests that Ineos have been setting this blistering pace to tee up a move by Tobias Foss – but the turns of Swift, Thomas and now Axel Laurance have in fact got rid of the Norwegian.

They’ve blown themselves up in the process but brought the gap down to 45 seconds – but now what? Simmons is there to try to avoid this gap getting any smaller.

Foss recovers and brings himself onto the front now. What do Ineos do now?

Ivan Romeo attacks for Movistar. Simmons is onto him but the Spanish champ is making a huge dent in the breakaway’s lead, bringing it down to 30 seconds. He causes a split but has the American on his wheel.

Abrahamsen takes the one point on offer at the summit.

97km to go: The stage dips under the 100km to go mark and the peloton, still led by Lidl-Trek, are keeping the breakaway on a very tight leash. The gap is down to 1’48” and they’re chipping away a second or two at a time.

Ineos take things up and set a hard pace as they hit the first categorised climb, the cat-four Col du Pertuis. Connor Swift is taking them up these 6.6% gradients at a bruising 40km/h. Quinn Simmons is lurking to try to shut this down. Now the gap is plummeting and Geraint Thomas takes over. It’s down to 1’10”.

Lawrence Ostlere had a chat with Luke Rowe ahead of the final week. Rowe discussed Pogacar’s dominance, the fragile status of Mark Cavendish’s Tour de France stage win record, and what Visma-Lease a Bike can do to get Jonas Vingegaard back into the hunt for the yellow jersey.

1110km to go: A very cagey approach to this intermediate sprint. Lidl-Trek look around and finally pull off for Milan to sprint… he does so almost casually, looking around just to check no one’s coming around him, and he takes 11 points for fifth, with Biniam Girmay taking 10 just behind him.

That takes Milan’s points lead over Pogacar to 22 points.

112km to go: Louis Barre of Intermarche-Wanty has hit the deck and that doesn’t look nice. He looks to have fallen heavily on his right side. He’s being attended to by medical staff but is up on his feet at least.

Abrahamsen leads out the intermediate sprint at Roche-Saint-Secret-Beconne, with Burgaudeau his only challenger… but the Norwegian is simply too strong there.

117km to go: As you were in the bunch. The peloton rolls through a feed zone with the very recognisable jersey of Simmons on the front for Lidl-Trek.

5km until the intermediate sprint. The breakaway will pick up the major points, but Milan will be looking for the rest.

Florian Lipowitz was one of the big winners of yesterday’s Mont Ventoux summit, cementing his lead in the white jersey standings. Oscar Onley stuck with him on the lower to middle sections of the ‘Giant of Provence’ but was distanced by the Red Bull duo of Lipowitz and Roglic.

Healy’s great day out saw him move up to ninth overall and fourth in the white jersey standings, but this looks like Lipowitz’s to lose.

1. Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) 58:33:49
2. Oscar Onley (Team Picnic PostNL) +2’01”
3. Kevin Vauquelin (Arkea-B&B Hotels) +4’17”
4. Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) +8’49”
5. Carlos Rodriguez (Ineos Grenadiers) +11’42”

Here’s how the points jersey standings look ahead of today’s stage.

Jonathan Milan may have downplayed things somewhat in his interview, but today’s stage is make-or-break – especially given that stage 21 into Paris might not come down to a sprint at all.

There are 50 points on offer at the finish and 20 at the intermediate sprint; if he were to bag both that would give him an 81-point cushion over Pogacar.

The Slovenian is likely targeting victory on both stages 18 and 19, which would give him a haul of 40 points in total – but if Pogacar were to win in yellow on the Champs-Elysees, which may sound ludicrous but is hardly out of the question, he would pick up another 50 points and take green off Milan.

1. Jonathan Milan (Lidl‑Trek) 251 pts
2. Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) 240 pts
3. Biniam Girmay (Intermarché‑Wanty) 169 pts
4. Tim Merlier (Soudal Quick‑Step) 150 pts
5. Jonas Vingegaard (Visma – Lease a Bike) 135 pts

133km to go: Ineos Grenadiers tell Axel Laurance to give things up and the Frenchman duly does so.

So, there are four riders at the front: Albanese, Pacher, Abrahamsen, and Burgaudeau.

Lidl-Trek’s Quinn Simmons patrols things on the front of the bunch, with Max Schachmann from Quick-Step for company.

20km to the intermediate sprint.

TNT Sports’ Anders Mielke has a chat with Jonathan Milan, who still wears the green jersey, but only just. He asks if the departure of Mathieu van der Poel changes things for their rival squad Alpecin-Deceuninck. “They still have a lot of leadout guys, I’m expecting they as a team to maybe control, maybe not, I don’t know. They can also try to make a hard pace on the climbs to try to let us sprinters suffer! We will see, it’s really unpredictable.”

How important is this stage for Milan’s hopes of wearing green in Paris? “For me there are many others with the points. We are really looking forward, it’s one of the most important, yes.”

Will the sprinters’ teams work together to make sure this comes down to a bunch finish? You’d expect so, but there are 15 teams still chasing a stage win, and they won’t be too cooperative…