2024, 60th Tour de l'Avenir ***Spoilers***

That's an interesting final stage alright @blazing_saddles Whoever wins this is going to need some climbing legs, not much chance of tanking up the time difference on a 7km ITT

U23 Cycling Zone's favourites...

Ineos have August, Leonard, Shmidt and Øxenberg all riding. The latter three all seem to be somewhat out of leftfield. Maybe we'll get a hint of why they have been signed.

Of the Brits, as well as Blackmore, Joshua Golliker is one to look out for.

Michael Leonard riding for Canada sounds like he’s spent more time in the Home Counties rather than the Yukon.

Ludovico Crescioli of Italy took yesterday's stage from a two man move that went in the final few kilometres after the break had been caught. His German co-attacker, who did all of the work to keep them away from the chasing pack, looked suitably dismayed as they crossed the line, giving the finger to the Italian.

Edit: Apparently, Crescioli told the German he could have the win if he kept riding and that he wasn't going to sprint. Ouch.

Pedersen, who will be going pro with Uno-X from next season, holds onto yellow although that is likely to change after today's stage which ought to be a GC test.

GB's reluctance to get involved in the chase (at all yesterday, too late the day before) has potentially cost Matthew Brennan a couple of stage wins and yellow. The young Brit, who will turn pro with VLAB next season, is comfortably the fastest sprinter in the bunch and has on both occasions won the sprint from the bunch behind the break.

Recent signings Peter Øxenberg and Artem Shmidt are not exactly showing why Ineos think they are ready for the World Tour. The "next Jonas Vingegaard" is 24:55 down already while "the American wonderkid" is at 17:49. August and Leonard remain in contention though.

In fairness to Vingegaard, he was only seven seconds down on eventual winner Pogacar after the first 6 flatter stages. Oddly, it was only when the road went significantly uphill in the next 4 stages that his lack of confidence riding in the bunch showed itself, resulting in a deficit of over 41 minutes.

Up to stage 6, he had finished in the peloton on all but stage 3 where he lost about 30 seconds to the main bunch. The almost 3 minutes down was distorted because the race was led by a winner from a breakaway who was a no-hoper in the mountains. JV was in touch with the competitors for GC until the road went uphill. At that point, he was a few seconds behind Pogacar and second placed Arensman and actually ahead of Gino Mader, Vlasov, Champoussin, Sosa, Almeida and Dunbar who would make up the eventual top 8.

I was sad enough to follow this race on DirectVelo's live feed as only the final 2 stages had live TV coverage. The only team doing any work on the front in the mountains were the Colombians who were trying to make it hard for Sosa who was playing catch-up in the GC. The only work JV had to do was stay with Gregaard for as long as possible, something he singularly failed to do.

Anyway, this is all getting off my original point to gsk82, which is that so far Øxenberg is actually performing significantly worse than Vingegaard did.

Clément Izquierdo (France) out alone leading 2 chasers (Colby Simmons and an Italian) being chased down by a Belgian led peloton. I think!

I'd hazard a guess that the Frenchman is not going to win this stage.

Group of favourites:

Florian Samuel KAJAMINI, Ludovico CRESCIOLI (Italie), Joseph BLACKMORE (Grande-Bretagne), Simon DALBY (Danemark), Léo BISIAUX, Clément IZQUIERDO, Brieuc ROLLAND (France), Jarno WIDAR (Belgique), Tijmen GRAAT (Pays-Bas), Pablo TORRES ARIAS, Pau MARTI SORIANO (Espagne) Mats WENZEL (Luxembourg), Zeray Nahom ARAYA (Centre Mondial du Cyclisme) et Fernando Diego PESCADOR CASTRO (Colombie)

Joe Blackmore takes the stage from Widar and Torres. Those three were 20-odd seconds clear of Bisiaux and Graat.

Blackmore takes the overall lead.

That depends on how Blackmore does today on a steeper finishing climb. He said himself after yesterday's stage that Widar can handle the steeper climbs better than he can.

Louis Sutton (GB) is the best placed of 12 riders with 3:35 on the peloton which is being led by the GB team. Sutton is in the virtual lead on GC.