Stage 17 route guide - flat, 160.4km, Bollene to Valence
Italian stretches points lead by 61 points; Stage 17 results
Tadej Pogacar maintains overall race lead
Wout van Aert's bid to latch onto the breakaway comes to a halt as the versatile Belgian star is caught.
His Visma-Lease a Bike are still to register a stage win on this year's Tour.
The four leaders are 1min 5 secs clear. Will they be caught in these wet conditions?
Some rain has started to fall, and several teams are warning their riders that there is rain falling inside the final 10km of today's stage too.
How will that affect the finish?
It's Vincenzo Albanese who takes the solitary mountain point up for grabs over the Col de Tartaiguille.
Wout van Aert is 25 seconds back, with a 55-second gap to the peloton.
Image source, ReutersQuentin Pacher leads the breakaway onto the climb, before Michael Woods attacks from the bunch, and Wout van Aert counter-attacks.
The bunch comes to a halt. Looked like someone got caught on the edge of the tarmac, with Carlos Rodriguez going down and Julian Alaphilippe forced to tumble onto the grass.
The latter's not happy, but more through frustration rather than an injury. It's nothing major and they're all soon going again.
The day's second categorised climb is up the Col de Tartaiguille and is 3.6km long with an average gradient of 3.5%.
The breakaway's lead is stable again at 1min 10secs.
As the riders prepare for that category four climb, here's a reminder of how the general classification standings look after stage 16, when Tadej Pogacar increased his lead by two seconds to four minutes 15 seconds:
The gap to the leaders is still just over a minute approaching the day's second and final climb.
The breakaway has stretched its lead back to 1min 5secs. Here's a reminder of who's in there:
Image source, ReutersWith Tim Merlier back in the mix, his Soudal Quick-Step team-mates Pascal Eenkhoorn and Ilan van Wilder are now at the front of the bunch and have helped close the gap to the leaders to 45 seconds.
Lidl-Trek's Quinn Simmons and Jasper Stuyven also help out... and team-mate Jonathan Milan has made it back to the bunch, along with Soudal Quick-Step's Tim Merlier.
Panic over.
Toms Skujins is waiting to lend a hand to Lidl-Trek team-mate Jonathan Milan, while at the front of the bunch Tudor, Picnic PostNL and Intermarche-Wanty help Alpecin-Deceuninck to push the pace.
Points leader Jonathan Milan speaking before today's stage about yesterday's withdrawal of Mathieu van der Poel: "I'm sure it will change a lot for Alpecin-Deceuninck but they still have a lot of lead-out guys.
"I'm expecting them as a team to maybe control it, maybe not. They can also try to make a hard pace on the climbs to try to make us sprinters suffer, but we will see.
"There will be other stages with points but this, for sure, we're really looking forward to. I think it's one of the most important, yes."
Gianni Verstrynge is now pulling the bunch in a bid to keep Jonathan Milan and Tim Merlier adrift.
Verstrynge's Alpecin-Deceuninck team-mate Kaden Groves is another potential contender for the stage win later.
Matteo Trentin puts his foot down, but Quinn Simmons is trying to control the front of the bunch, with team-mate Jonathan Milan and Tim Merlier closing the gap off the back.
Jonathan Milan and Tim Merlier, who have both won Tour stages this year, are struggling after that climb.
They are 45 seconds behind the bunch although Arnaud de Lie and Biniam Girmay, who will also be targeting a sprint win later, have not been dropped.
That's just a fifth mountain point for Jonas Abrahamsen so it has no impact on the top five in the standings:
The bunch is split, with Jonathan Milan dropped.
After claiming maximum points on the intermediate sprint, Jonas Abrahamsen then bags the solitary mountain point on offer over the Col du Pertuis summit.
Ivan Romeo and Quinn Simmons are 30 seconds back, with Wout van Aert set to join them.
Quinn Simmons is now pulling the bunch, although team-mate Jonathan Milan has drifted to the back 10 riders.
Geraint Thomas pulls the bunch, followed by Ineos Grenadiers team-mate Axel Laurance.
The French rider then attacks 2km from the summit, with the gap to the leaders now down to 45 seconds.