Tour de France 2025 Stage 18 live: Route and updates today on queen stage from Vif to Courchevel Col de la Loze

65km to go: Pogacar takes second over the summit and immediately slots in first in this group, showing a bit of muscle in this battle. He wants to take this descent at his pace… and the Visma pair swing around him to lead things again. This descent is a technical one. Roglic sits behind his compatriot Pogacar, then Gall, O’Connor, and Rubio.

Behind them, Lipowitz has clawed back a handful of seconds and he crosses some 32” back, and is only ten seconds or so off Arensman.

The Onley group, with both Yates brothers, Soler and Narvaez, is two minutes back. Vauquelin is nearly two minutes behind them.

67km to go: Bodies everywhere. Arensman has been dropped and his attempt to win the KOM jersey may be over before it’s even started.

“Don’t look behind, Lipo, you’re doing well,” Red Bull tell their best young rider. He now has a minute on Onley and has to TT himself to the summit of the Madeleine. Roglic is still up ahead, along with Jorgenson, Vingegaard, Pogacar, Gall – up to sixth provisionally – O’Connor and Rubio.

Into the final kilometre of the Col de la Madeleine.

70km to go: The yellow jersey and Vingegaard power up to this breakaway and slot in behind Jorgenson. Pogacar says something on the radio. What do UAE do now?

And what do Red Bull do? Lipowitz is all alone, 30 seconds back. Do they send Roglic back, or keep him with Pogacar and Vingegaard, riding towards a podium place?

Lipowitz has an extra 40 seconds as things stand on the Onley group; he’s 1’10” back with Adam Yates and a couple of others. He may find himself benefiting from the UAE riders there if they try to come back on for Pogacar.

71km to go: Well, I spoke too soon… Simon Yates can only hang on for a minute and as Sepp Kuss comes onto the front, Visma now have successfully isolated Pogacar, with Adam Yates and Jhonatan Narvaez unable to hold this pace.

Only Pogacar sticks with Kuss and Vingegaard, with Lipowitz struggling but eventually just about getting back on. Oscar Onley is left behind with Adam Yates and Narvaez.

They now have just 30 seconds to bridge across to the breakaway – which contains Jorgenson, of course.

Now Vingegaard attacks!! Pogacar follows!

72km to go: Campenaerts has put in a monumental shift but now the Belgian is done. Simon Yates, the rangy climber, takes over.

I’m finding Visma’s tactics utterly baffling. This is the penultimate climb – there’s still a technical descent to follow before the final HC climb itself, the toughest of the day. Visma are burning through their riders and have only just managed to get rid of Marc Soler. Pogacar still looks fine.

The gap to Roglic, Gall, O’Connor and go now dips under a minute for the first time. Roglic ups the pace once more on this 9% section.

75km to go: Visma are setting an infernal pace. Van Aert has been used up and now Benoot comes to a standstill as he pulls off. The yellow jersey group is now under 1’30” behind the breakaway, having pulled back the same amount of time on the first 10km of this climb. Campenaerts now takes over.

It’s having an effect: the great French hopeful Vauquelin, sixth at the start of the day, is having a tough time on this climb and he slips off the back of this very reduced peloton, losing 40 seconds and counting. Ben Healy has been dropped too.

Roglic lifts the pace on the front group, no doubt aware of the increase behind. Armirail has done a herculean turn for Gall and drops off, forcing the Slovenian to finally start pulling.

Tim Wellens has sat up… and after being absorbed by the yellow jersey group, immediately falls out the back.

80km to go: The Spanish climber has not been having a good Tour. His one good day appeared to be on Mont Ventoux earlier this week, when he at one point was riding to the stage win before being caught and dropped.

He attempted to escape today but again has been caught and passed, and he decides to call it quits.

80km to go: Visma move up, clearly wanting to control things, and Politt responds by lifting the pace before swinging off for Soler and Sivakov – who hasn’t looked great today – to take things up.

Their psychological warfare continues… and Sivakov drops away. Pogacar seems to have decided he will dictate the pace, and he asks Soler to up the pace. But now Wout van Aert takes over with a significant stretch of this climb still to come.

Up ahead, the Roglic-Gall group comes back on to Arensman and Jorgenson. The American is having a much better day than he has on every mountain stage so far.

82km to go: The Martinez group has now been swept up by the peloton, 3’11” behind the leaders, and that’s a terrible day for him. Jordan Jegat’s group has been swept up too.

Martinez is now not going to pick up points on the Madeleine, and also might find himself in the UCI sin bin for a bad sticky bottle on the Col du Glandon. His DS appeared to attempt to hand over a bottle but failed to do so, instead giving Martinez a helpful push. He might get a yellow card for that – or a disqualification if he’s very unlucky.

Either way, his dream of polka dots is disintegrating, and Arensman is on the rampage up the front.

84km to go: This lead group has completely split up on the descent, with Jorgenson and Arensman soaring off the front. They have 35 seconds on a group containing Roglic, Gall, O’Connor and Wellens, with Armirail again coming to the front. Gall of course was the last winner on Col de la Loze, in 2023.

They’ve finished that 19km descent and are now onto the Col de la Madeleine: 19.2km at 7.9% on average.

The Martinez group has completely fallen off the back on that long descent and now sits 2’18” off the pace.