Vuelta a España: Simon Yates goes for victory in decisive stage 20 – live!

73km to go: De Gendt claimed that climb, with Mollema second, and looks to have all-but sealed the Mountains classification. The leading riders are descending with De Gendt 2min3sec ahead of third group led by Gianluca Brambilla of Trek and also featuring UAE Team Emirates Fabio Aru and Movistar’s Andrey Amador.

76km to go: Movistar starting to manoeuvre their pieces with Andrey Amador and Winner Anacona moving towards the group chasing De Gendt.

78.5km to go: He may be keeping his powder dry for later but Quintana hasn’t really managed to escape from Michelton-Scott. George Bennett of LottoNL-Jumbo also putting in some strong work. De Gendt remains out in front with less than 1km of the climb remaining.

80km to go: Quintana is dragging Michelton-Scott with him. Simon Yates is there plus two teammates. Out in front, De Gendt has taken the lead, tagging Mollema with Majka and Nibali also up there. Five more points coming the way of the Lotto-Soudal rider.

81km to go: Quintana is on the move and Michelton-Scott don’t seem to want to follow.

82km to go: The peloton is just under 2mins off the pace of the breakaway, which will probably increase as all the riders struggle to fit through what is a very narrow road. Michelton-Scott still in control at the front. Nairo Quintana is lurking, though. The Colombian is going to attack at some stage…

82.7km to go: The second group of about eight riders is about 33sec back and includes Winner Anacona who should have a big part to play for Movistar. Meanwhile, in the breakaway Mollema is off! Switching on the afterburners and chasing those points with about 4.6km to go.

83.2km to go: We’re into our second categorised climb now, a 6km Cat 1 heave up Col de Beixalis. De Gendt has powered his way to the front of the breakaway.

84.4km to go: The Movistar man in the breakaway is Nelson Oliveira. Back in the peloton, just over a minute behind now, Michelton-Scott are setting the pace at the front.

The points won at La Comella after 5.6km

1. Thomas De Gendt (Lotto-Soudal) 5pts
2. Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo) 3pts
3. Michal Kwiatkowski (Team Sky) 1pt

86km to go: Bahrain-Merida look well placed in the 15-man breakaway which leads the peloton by just over 50 seconds. Movistar also have a representative amongst it but I cannot ascertain exactly who it is… rest assured it’s not Valverde or Quintana.

88km to go: Nibali has taken the lead after that descent but we’re into another climb and the Italian is joined by Kwiatkowski, Bauke Mollema and others (none of the GC contenders, yet).

91.2km to go: De Gendt is on the descent with Michal Kwiatkowski, Majka and Nibali in pursuit. Fair to say the peloton is a little scattered.

93km to go: And De Gendt is off chasing those points on the first climb. He leads Luis Ángel Maté by 10 points.

93.3km to go: Tao Geoghegan Hart has been caught and a group of around 20 riders has formed including Vinzenzo Nibali and Rafal Majka plus Thomas De Gendt who leads the Mountains classification.

Julian Fenton has emailed in to remind me (and by extension, you) that Britain’s Rachel Atherton won her fifth women’s downhill title at the Mountain Bike World Championships in Switzerland earlier this week.

Here’s an absolutely ridiculous video of her descent…

Just 1km into the stage and we already have a large breakaway, led by Team Sky’s Tao Geoghegan Hart. There is a climb but it’s a categorised one.

Steven Kruijswijk, in third, also popped up there and admitted he won’t be making any early attacks and will instead see how the stage pans out. The Dutchman is probably just out of sight (1min 58sec adrift) for the red jersey but wants to defend that podium place.

The intrigue is what Movistar do… they surely have to go early but Quintana and Valverde looked pretty spent at the end of yesterday.

And we’re underway…

Mitchelton-Scott sport director Julian Dean has been speaking…

It’s a very important day but you have to keep things in perspective, we have reason to be confident but we’re certainly not cocky.

We’ve had guys on the final climb throughout the race so there’s nothing to be afraid of as long as we’re smart, play it cool and use our guys effectively.

One last plug for this fine Jeremy Whittle piece on Simon Yates and British cycling’s rise

One semi-ridiculous stat I’ve overlooked is that *if* Yates wins, Britain will become the first country in history (with the Vuelta the last of the Grand Tours to begin, in 1935) to have three different winners of the three races in the same year: Yates, Geraint Thomas and Chris Froome.

French riders held all three jerseys in 1964 but Jacques Anquetil (Giro and Tour) claimed two with Raymond Poulidor winning at La Vuelta; Spanish riders repeated the trick in 2008 with Alberto Contador winning the Giro and Vuelta and Carlos Sastres the Tour.

Just briefly moving away from the road and onto the track, Vittoria Bussi broke the women’s hour record yesterday by 27m.

The Italian, an Oxford-educated doctor of Pure Mathematics who only took up cycling seriously five years ago (come on!), covered 48.007km at the Velodromo Bicentenario in Aguascalientes in Mexico, beating the record held by American Evelyn Stevens since February, 2016.

Bussi had attempted to break the record twice in October last year only to fall 400m (less than two laps) short.

Michelton-Scott have put together this nice behind-the-scenes video with added Passion Pit, which is always welcome

We’re just under an hour until coverage begins so why not take a look back at yesterday’s events which provided Yates with such a healthy buffer ahead of today…

Jon Booth has emailed in under the title, ‘Let’s Go Simon’

If he wins today and goes on to take the red jersey this would put him up with the British Greats no doubt. He is great to watch and has a racing brain beyond his years. To win you have to take risks (Giro). Whatever happens this has been a stellar season for him. Good Luck Simon.

Yates, who has always maintained he’s better on the offensive than in defensive mood, was cautious to get too far ahead of himself.

As a side point, although Movistar, with Nairo Quintana, Richard Carapaz and the wonderfully-named Winner Anacona have the better team on paper, Adam Yates and Jack Haig (who should secure a top-20 finish today) have been outstanding for Michelton-Scott.

I haven’t won La Vuelta yet. I’m very wary of tomorrow. We saw today what can happen in just one day. I try to stay focus now. Of course I enjoyed today but it’s not over until it’s over. I felt good which is why I tried. The team did a fantastic job again. Jack did a good ride to really set me up before I went away and Adam was always behind in case they came back.

This was Valverde’s reaction after yesterday’s disaster for him and the team, which has either broken him or put him in a mood to be extra aggressive today (and why not?)

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, it’s part of cycling. What’s happened to me today can also happen to him (Simon Yates) tomorrow. To win La Vuelta is complicated, for sure. It was complicated this morning, it’s complicated now, but it’s not impossible. We’re going to try. I’m still confident.

A quick note on the weather. It’s a warm-ish 22C with very light winds and a 30-40% chance of rain/scattered thunderstorms (which could fall towards the end of the stage or may not appear until later in the evening; which is frustratingly vague but is the best I can do at the moment, sorry).

Shout out to Nathan Haas for his recon of today’s queen stage for The Peloton Brief

A look at the top 10 of the GC

1. Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott/GBR) 76h 44’ 41’’
2. Alejandro Valverde (Movistar/ESP) +1’ 38’’
3. Steven Kruijswijk (Lotto NL-Jumbo/NED) +1’ 58’’
4. Enric Mas (Quick-Step Floors/ESP) +2’ 15’’
5. Miguel Ángel López (Astana/COL) +2’ 29’’
6. Nairo Quintana (Movistar/COL) +4’ 01’’
7. Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ/FRA)+5’ 22’’
8. Rigoberto Urán (EF Education First–Drapac/COL) +5’ 29’’
9. Ion Izagirre (Bahrain-Merida/ESP) +6’ 30’’
10. Tony Gallopin (AG2R La Mondiale/FRA) +7’ 21’’

For some recommended reading, Richard Moore was in Andorra to watch Simon Yates increase his lead in what proved a disastrous day for Alejandro Valverde and Movistar…

Jeremy Whittle has this fine piece on Yates’ backstory and what another Grand Tour victory will mean for British cycling…

Let the good people of the Vuelta guide you through the stage

Simon Yates is just 97.3km from his first Grand Tour victory, with tomorrow’s stage into Madrid a traditional procession, which will also create the rather bizarre scenario – given the fact before 2012 there had been precisely zero – of the last five winners of cycling’s biggest stage races all being British. Thankfully, for the Mitchelton–Scott rider today’s jaunt is something of a home stage for him. No, the Vuelta hasn’t briefly been relocated to Bury but Yates bases himself in Andorra and has trained this route and these climbs countless times. That being said, despite this being the shortest stage of the race bar the opening day time trial, this is a particularly brutal ride from Escaldes-Engordany to Coll de la Gallina with six “hellish” categorised climbs.

Yates’ 1min 38secs advantage on Alejandro Valverde is sizeable, especially as he was able to put more than a minute on the veteran Spaniard yesterday with the pressure on, but the demanding nature of the stage and the quality of the Movistar team snapping at his heels means it’s far from inconceivable that this could go horribly wrong and spectacularly right for the 2009 champion.

Yates held the maglia rosa up until the final week of this year’s Giro d’Italia but suffered in the mountains and saw a 2mins 11sec lead gradually erode away. He has, given that collapse, exceeded expectations taking it this far. Valverde wasn’t speaking with any great confidence following yesterday’s stage while Yates has promised to keep attacking. And let’s not forget Steven Kruijswijk, who is only 20 seconds further back in third and is partial to an ambitious attack, while the Dutchman has youngsters Enric Mas and Miguel Ángel López on his tail for a podium place. It should be a fun few hours.