Romain Bardet hates time trials but has to pretty much give an excellent one of his own here along with Frank van den Broek.

He has won three Tour de France stages in his career, but never worn the yellow jersey.

What a moment this could be for the Frenchman.

This is some performance from 23-year-old Dutch rider Frank van den Broek, who is making his Tour de France debut. He won the Tour of Turkey earlier this year but nothing compares to this.

He and Romain Bardet are holding their advantage at 1 minute and 22 seconds.

The gap is down to 80 seconds. Mark Cavendish is 29 minutes and 45 seconds off the back.

EF Education-EasyPost take control at the front of the chasing group again as Ben Healy drops back to help Neilson Powless out. Are they riding for Alberto Bettiol?

The leading pair have around 90 seconds.

Ineos Grenadiers, Lidl-Trek and Visma-Lease a Bike take charge at the front of the peloton.

The leading DSM pair of Romain Bardet and Frank van den Broek will need to go hell for leather to win this stage.

Tom Pidcock and Mads Pedersen are both still in the main bunch and will fancy their chances here.

The leading duo have around two minutes to play with on the main peloton and a minute on the chasing Ben Healy.

Jonas Abrahamsen's exploits earlier in the stage, plus Valentin Madouas' failure to be one of the top two riders over that last ascent mean that the Uno-X Mobility rider will be the first Norwegian cyclist in history to wear the polka dot jersey.

At the back of the race Fabio Jakobsen has been dropped by Mark Cavendish and company.

The Dutch sprinter, who was picked ahead of the Manxman for the 2022 Tour, when they were both at Quick Step has his current teammate Bram Welten assisting.

Mark Cavendish is just over 23 minutes down as things stand. He should surely be okay.

Ben Healy gets over the penultimate climb of the day a minute down and caught slightly out in no man's land.

Jonas Abrahamsen cracks and now so to does Valentin Madouas.

Romain Bardet and Frank van den Broek are making their play for the stage. The final 26km are pretty much downhill.

The leading quartet hit the slopes of the Cote de Montemaggio, a 4.2 km climb at 6.6% average gradient.

Meanwhile, Ireland's Ben Healy launches out of the main bunch down the road.

Given we are in pirate country it would have been slightly unusual had there not been a tribute to the late Marco Pantani out on the road today.

The 1998 Tour and Giro champion passed away in 2004, aged 34.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Romain Bardet is just a handful of seconds from the leading duo and has his teammate Frank van de Broek to support him.

The Frenchman has taken well over a minute out of the main bunch containing all the GC favourites.

Valentin Madouas nicks five KOM points from Jonas Abrahamsen, who is still just about in control of the KOM contest with a couple of cat three climbs incoming.

Romain Bardet is flying here. He goes past Ryan Gibbons and Matej Mohoric like a tornado and catches up to his DSM-firmenich PostNL colleague dsm-firmenich Frank van den Broek.

Romain Bardet is on the offensive and zips off the front of the peloton. Can he make this stick?

Up ahead Matej Mohoric, Ryan Gibbons and his teammate Frank van den Broek are all flagging as Valentin Madouas and Jonas Abrahamsen continue on alone.

Image source, Getty Images

Tadej Pogacar is hoping to become the first rider to achieve the Giro d’Italia - Tour de France double since Marco Pantani in 1998.

And he has really pushed his UAE Team Emirates colleagues to test out Jonas Vingegaard and Wout van Aert during the last 20 kilometres or so.

But at the moment, they both look in pretty good shape, although it still feels weird to see them in a green and blue kit instead of yellow.

Richard Carapaz does not look happy. The Ecuadorian is down off his saddle and needs to change bike.

A new one is immediately placed in front of him but he's lost a good 30 seconds on the main bunch there.

Matej Mohoric, who was dropped on the Cote de Barbotto utilises his impressive descending skills in order to rejoin the breakaway group at the front of the race.

It is a steep and fast descent before the final category two climb of the day, the Cote de San Leo, comes into view.

Mathieu van der Poel has been dropped by the peloton as UAE Team Emirates burn through riders at the front of the main bunch.

Tim Wellens and Marc Soler are done and Pavel Sivakov is the man pushing the pace now.

Tadej Pogacar still has the likes of Juan Ayuso, Joao Almeida and Adam Yates at his disposal.

Up ahead Jonas Abrahamsen takes charge of the provisional KOM standings burning off Valentin Madouas and Frank van den Broek in an energy-sapping sprint.