The Lanterne Rouge 2024 Spoiler Thread

Wright needs over 40 minutes to take over from Jakobsen. Too little, too late I suspect (though if he makes the cut he can have another go, of course)

At last, some excitement! After days without any meaningful action - many of them passing during stage 10 alone - we finally got to a stage suitable for attacking and the internet duly went wild. There's just something about seeing a true champion throwing years of experience and tactics out the window and simply going out swinging to see what happens.*

Inexplicably, however, the television chose instead to focus on some fella in yellow and the world's most embarrassing sprint finish from two people who looked both utterly shattered and stuck in the wrong gear.

Away from all that - and giving us a full day's tension instead of 30km - British champion Fred Wright had clearly woken up with a head full of ambition and a stomach devoid of contents, and chose to attack. Dropping off the back of the pack at the drop of the flag, Wright bravely gritted his teeth and tightened his sphincter, and was 20 minutes adrift by the halfway mark. By this time hope had left been left well astern, and Wright now set his countenance firmly on despair.

Unfortunately at this point bdsm-infirmnich clocked onto what was happening, and Jakobsen dropped off the back of the peloton. The strategic position was clear. Wright needed to find forty minutes or so on Jakobsen, and Jakobsen now moved to ensure that doing so would place Wright hors delai. This might have surprised lesser commentators, who would have anticipated that Jakobsen's form until now had been merely saving energy for a serious tilt against Pogacar on today's stage, but not for seasoned followers of the Lanterne Rouge. It's the most prestigious title in cycling, a stage win is minor in comparison, and pragmatically fighting dirty is essential in this game. Particularly in the shorts department for those contracting a performance boosting bout of dysentery.

Eschewing the chance to throw himself to the ground in the last 3km and trying to convince the commissaires that he'd been up with, well, anybody when it happened, Wright eventually rolled in 8 minutes outside the cut and was duly DQed after one of the bravest rides for a while. He leaves with his head held high and his morale through the floor, but he's shown that he's got what it takes to launch a proper attempt on the Lanterne in future years. If he avoids the unnecessary time gains in the opening week he can be right up there, in my opinion. Jakobsen and Welten meanwhile increased their stranglehold on the leaderboard, and as the best-rested riders in the race must surely be looking forward with glee to the very steepest mountains.

Wright said Fred:

Both of us together, one each end and steady as we go:

*It's what Remco calls "balls", although oddly he seems less keen to talk about testicular fortitude this evening now that Vingegaard has decided to ride to put somebody out of the race. Isn't this what you wanted, Remmers?

It was obvious he was going to climb off as soon as Welten left him. To finish last, first you have to last.

Disaster for Jakobsen!

It was supposed to be a simple, straightforward day for the sprinters. The sort of stage, in fact, that Jakobsen had been brought to the Tour to enjoy. Fate, however, had other ideas. A cruelly steep and unnoticed 1% gradient shortly after the start saw Jakobsen tailed off, and when even co-leader Welten had left him the writing was on the wall. The loss of Pale Bilbao - at least that's how he looked - shortly afterwards hardly affected the Lanterne, but the failure of defending champion Mrkv to even make the start line this morning has really shaken things up.

Astana attempted to cover the loss of Mrkv with a long-range attack by Federov to gain time, and he found a willing ally in Alpecin-Deceuninck's Jonas Rickaert. Indeed, Alpecin seemed to be going all out to publicise their caffeinated snake oil shampoo by sticking men on the front to open the gap wider, and even sent Sren Kragh Andersen back to shepherd the escapees home. Unfortunately however somebody had got confused vis-a-vis the position of Mickey's big hand, and all their effort on the front achieved was to eliminate their own men and the luckless Federov.

With all this going on it was easy to overlook events in the rest of the race, and in particular further developments in the strategic use of horizontality. Buoyed by yesterday's controversial decision to award him the same time as Evenepoel despite crashing in the last 3km, Roglic decided to get greedy and see if he could sit out the last 10km of today's stage. Unfortunately the commissaires took a dim view of this, and far from preserving his time Roglic was forced to creep in over two minutes down. It's probably just as well, as otherwise Geraint Thomas' unorthodox use of a bottle in the roll out of a Giro Stage in 2020 would have retrospectively been seen as a strategic masterstroke. Oh, and we also discovered the race has a Sam Bennett in it. When did the race get a Sam Bennett in it? Why did nobody tell me?

And so to the underall... Welten inherits the taillamp, but a stunning ride by Jarrad Drizzly has closed the gap to nineteen minutes or so (aided by Welten having an utter rush of blood to the head and contesting the sprint, of all things). Thijssen too had a jour avec instead of consolidating his place, various members of the Astana Team hung around to see if Roglic was going to take the insult from the commissaires lying down (answer: "yes, given the position he was in at that precise moment"). Lenny Martinez - and I honestly thought Lenny was a nickname given him by Carlton Kirby, and my world is now shook - also performed well; Bauhaus - in the middle of our street, and now I want to see the goth/Madness mash up the world so badly needs, Eekhoff and awkward kerning's Waerenskjold round out the top ten:

Villeneuve-sur-Lot:

Villeneuve-sur-Not:

NOOOO!

If the last group do get chopped hors delai, Drizzly Jarrad stands to inherit the Lanterne.

It's Bastille Day, and what better way to celebrate than with something that's revolting? And yes, there's a reason Guilio Ciccone isn't being encouraged to get in breaks and hoover up the mountains points this year.

Traditional for Bastille Day is the fevered speculation that this year - this year - a French rider could write their name in history and win a stage on France's national day. That meant for bumper coverage of the fight for the Lanterne on the very first climb, as French TV disconsolately watched rider after rider they'd spent the pre-stage coverage excitedly tipping for big things head straight out the back. Well, their loss was our gain, for rarely have we had so much TV coverage of so few chances.

Inevitably the big hitters soon formed their own group at the head of the race, and set their teams to work before in the last few kilometres one of the favourites finally showed weakness and cracked, whilst the rival they'd been going toe to toe with cycled off into the distance and glory. And not even that awful yellow jumper fouling up the screen.

Yup, forget about the Pogacar / Vingegaard battle, this was the real thing. Cycling red in tooth and crotch (top tip: use more chamois cream, lads*). Astana got Welten isolated, drew out his final reserves, and then accelerated to leave him hors delai whilst they themselves came in with just a couple of minutes to spare.

Welten was, as you might expect, devastated. The chance to win the Lanterne comes around rarely, he had plenty of time in hand, and yet... he jiggered it. Blew it. All he had to do was hold the wheel and mark the attacks and instead he comes in four minutes after everybody has packed up and gone home. Well, that's what happens if you keep attacking when you really don't need to - Pogacar should probably take notes.

The loss of Welten, and Gerben Thijssen (who apparently said the safe word to bdsm-firmenich), means that Astana now sit one and two, with Davide Ballerini in the hot seat and the thrilling prospect of the jersey being settled in the final time trial. It's still entirely possible that Mark Cavendish can complete the fairy tale by pulling ahead of Eddy Merckx and finally taking the Lanterne at the 15th time of asking. I bet Netflix can't believe their luck. bdsm-firmenich, meanwhile, are no doubt beating themselves up over today's result - and enjoying it thoroughly.

And then... a fairy tale really did happen.

Away from the thrilling team display of Astana, and unnoticed by all but an ecstatic French crowd, Andre Demare produced a result to lift a divided nation. On Bastille Day, finally, heroically, a Frenchman stood up, or more accurately crawled up, and delivered. Sneaking in a mere 45 seconds before the time cut, Demare timed his attack perfectly - and naturally the emotion of one of the biggest wins of his career was all too much. And as a nation rejoices, Marc Madiot is placed into his third cold shower of the day lest his reserves of patriotism go supercritical and blow up the whole damn tour.

Allons enfant de la patrie:

La gloire est à l'arrière:

*And on a related note, will somebody please explain to Adam Yates that if the French roads are like sandpaper on your undercarriage, perhaps try tucking it back in your shorts. There's a good lad.