Tour de France stage 18 as it happened: Arnaud Demare wins stage 18 as Geraint Thomas retains yellow jersey
Follow all the latest from the 171km stage from Trie-Sur-Baïse to Pau as Geraint Thomas looks to tighten his grip on the yellow jersey
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Your support makes all the difference.Geraint Thomas is closing in on his maiden grand tour and yellow jersey, now only three competitive stages away from sealing the deal, and he now has the added bonus of Chris Froome's commitment to help get over the line.
However he still has Tom Dumoulin lurking at 1min 59sec off the pace and the Dutch rider is almost certain to gain some time during Saturday's time trial, which is firmly his domain.
While Thomas will be looking to keep rivals at bay, Peter Sagan will be chasing the stage win in a sprint in Pau, although he may just be happy to finish after his 'hard crash' yesterday.
Click on stage 18 to refresh the live tracker:
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I've just had a pop down to visit the finish – long and straight and flat perfect for the sprinters and not an opportunity they can afford to let pass, hence the tight grip on the breakaway:
If you haven't seen it, Chris Froome had an altercation with a confused gendarme last night. Here's the full story:
80km to go
A little crash in the peloton, and Nairo Quintana one of those affected. He's back riding pretty quickly and trying to catch up with the main bunch.
70km to go
So the state of play on this rather sedate stage so far. There are five out in front, leading the peloton by 1 min 30 sec. They are: Luke Durbridge (Mitchelton-Scott), Thomas Boudat (Direct Energie), Matt Hayman (Mitchelton-Scott) , Niki Terpstra (Quick-Step) and Guillaume Van Keirsbulck (Wonty-Groupe Gobert). Not a man in there that concerns Geraint Thomas's yellow jersey, but the peloton are keeping a beady eye on them simply because the sprinters want to be in position to fight out this stage in Pau.
55km to go
The peloton have upped their game a little here, and the gap has squeezed to around 1 min 17 sec. Team Sky are near the front but not doing much of the work, which suits them down to the ground. This, so far, is the perfect day for Geraint Thomas.
43km to go
The gap from peloton to the leaders remains at around 1 min 20 sec.
30km to go
And absolutely zilch has changed. Not a cracker, this. Let's hope for an explosive finish.
20 km to go
The gap to the break has all but faded away now as the peloton up their pace. Here's a pretty graph of their day's work:
10km to go
They are all together now, with Groupama-FDJ and now Bora-Hansgrohe leading the way for Demare and Sagan...
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