Tour de France 2023 LIVE: Latest news ahead of Grand Depart in Bilbao

The 2023 Tour de France gets under way in Bilbao tomorrow with a hilly stage one, which starts and ends in the Spanish city via a jaunt around the Basque Country and the Bay of Biscay coastline.

Reigning champion Jonas Vingegaard arrives in supreme form having won the Criterium du Dauphine earlier this month and he looks like being the man to beat, backed by a formidable Jumbo-Visma team. But he faces the challenge of two-time winner Tadej Pogacar, back to regain his crown and this time he comes armed with new signing Adam Yates to Team UAE Emirates.

While Vingegaard and Pogacar are expected to fight out the yellow jersey, there is an open race to finish on the podium. Australia’s 2022 Giro d’Italia winner Jai Hindley, Spain’s Enric Mas, rising Danish star Mattias Skjelmose, home favourite David Gaudu, 2019 Giro winner Richard Carapaz and Yates himself are all in the running, while Ineos riders Tom Pidcock and Dani Martinez could also end up high in the general classification. Meanwhile Mark Cavendish will go for a record 35th stage win.

Follow all the latest news below ahead of Saturday’s Grand Depart.

Tour de France 2023

• Tour de France 2023 begins in Bilbao tomorrow

• Jonas Vingegaard dismisses Tadej Pogacar talk as ‘mind games'

• Lotto Dstny director dropped over alleged topless texts

• Tour organisers beef up security to avoid disruption

Tour de France riders won’t face automatic exclusion in case of COVID-19 positive test

17:29 , Lawrence Ostlere

Tour de France riders who test positive for COVID-19 won’t be automatically expelled from the race, cycling’s governing body said Wednesday.

The International Cycling Union said the health risks linked to the coronavirus “are currently extremely low in the peloton” because of the immunity induced by a very high rate of vaccination, or previous infections riders and staff members might have contracted.

Health passes, vaccination certificates or negative COVID-19 tests prior to participation in competitions are no longer required this season. If a rider or a team member tests positive for the virus, the decision to exclude, or isolate them, will be taken collectively by the team’s doctor, the Tour de France coronavirus coordinator and the UCI medical director “on the basis of the clinical elements available and the results of the COVID-19 test.”

Earlier this season, Giro d’Italia leader and race favorite Remco Evenepoel withdrew after testing positive for the coronavirus. Other riders also abandoned after returning positive tests, including Domenico Pozzovivo and Rigoberto Urán.

The cycling federation said coronavirus cases reported in France are very low, adding that the preventive measures implemented by Tour organizers limiting access and requiring masks in specific zones are adequate.

“The rules introduced over the last three years in the interests of everyone’s health and safety should continue to apply,” the UCI said. “These include maintaining sufficient physical distance, frequently disinfecting hands and regularly airing enclosed spaces.”

Faulkner doubt for Tour de France Femmes after road accident

17:01 , Lawrence Ostlere

American rider Kristen Faulkner suffered a fractured knee after being hit by a car during training in California, her team Jayco AlUla said on Wednesday, putting in doubt her participation in Tour de France Femmes.

“Kristen Faulkner was hit by a car whilst out training in California recently and sustained a small fracture to her knee,” the team wrote in a statement on Twitter.

“Unfortunately due to the incident, Faulkner will be unable to race until the knee has healed.

“As always, the health and wellbeing of riders is the priority and Faulkner will work closely with the medical team throughout this recovery period.”

The Australian team did not give a timeline for the return of the 30-year-old to racing.

The Tour de France Femmes begins on July 23.

Pidcock playing long game in Tour de France career

16:25 , Lawrence Ostlere

Pidcock headlines the Grenadiers’ eight-man squad alongside Bernal, who returns to the Tour for the first time since 2020, fighting his way back from the catalogue of broken bones suffered in a career-threatening crash at the start of last year.

The Colombian finished 12th at the Criterium du Dauphine earlier this month, but his first Grand Tour since he won the Giro d’Italia in 2021 will be a major test.

“Egan is very ambitious but very realistic in what he can achieve,” Ellingworth said. “He wants to keep pushing himself. Egan is a proven winner before that accident and a fantastic role model and road captain.

“We’re really open and very happy to give him this opportunity to see what he can do. He’s certainly going to try on GC.”

The challenge for Ineos and a host of others is to figure out a way of competing with Pogacar and Vingegaard, by far and away the two favourites once again.

Ineos, formerly Team Sky, were perennial winners of the Tour over the last decade but have not tasted victory since Bernal’s in 2019.

With Pidcock too raw and Bernal rediscovering himself, it is hard to see that changing this summer.

“We’ve got to see where Tom progresses, and he’s certainly on the right track, and then see how Egan steps back,” Ellingworth said. “It’s going to take a little bit of time unfortunately, that’s just where we are as a team.

“Egan was our card to play for the Tour de France for the next two to three years. Life is what it is and you just have to put up with it, and we’ll do our best to get him back to where he was.

“Our ambition is we want to win the Tour again. Anybody can be beaten. Grand Tours are a hell of a journey from start to finish and you can never write yourself out.”

Pidcock playing long game in Tour de France career

16:02 , Lawrence Ostlere

Tom Pidcock can take another big step towards his ambition of one day winning the Tour de France as he embarks on cycling’s biggest race for the second time.

Pidcock lit up the Tour on debut last summer with his stunning solo victory from a breakaway on Alpe d’Huez, and the 23-year-old will be back on the start line for Saturday’s opening stage in Bilbao with different goals.

Winning from a breakaway is one thing but Pidcock wants victory from within the bunch to show he can compete with the best, while also testing himself in the general classification.

Rod Ellingworth, deputy team principal of the Ineos Grenadiers, sees his young star as a potential future Grand Tour winner, but one needing experience.

“I think he’s still got some work to do to be a contender in the general classification,” Ellingworth said. “I think for me this is playing the long game, it’s a stepping stone towards his dreams and ambitions, and he’s certainly got ambitions at the Tour.”

Winning the Tour has been a young man’s game in recent years. Tadej Pogacar became a double champion aged just 22 in 2021, Egan Bernal was 22 when he took yellow in 2019, and Jonas Vingegaard 25 when he won last year.

But Pidcock is on a different journey as the Olympic mountain bike champion and former cyclo-cross world champion balances ambitions across three disciplines.

“Tom is someone who when he sets his mind to somewhere, he’ll go for it full-bore,” Ellingworth said. “At the moment we know Tom has ambitions that are not just at the Tour and we’re happy to go on that journey with him.

“He’s ticking the boxes as he goes along of things he wants to achieve and the Tour will be one. Whether he makes it, you never know, but he’s certainly going to give it a good crack.”

Cycling director dropped from Tour de France after topless photo allegations

15:48 , Lawrence Ostlere

A reminder of this story this morning:

An Australian cycling manager has withdrawn from the Tour de France after allegations he sent an unsolicited image of himself to a woman online.

Allan Davis is the sporting director of Lotto Dstny and was set to steer the team through the 21-stage race, which begins this weekend in the Spanish Basque Country.

Earlier this week a Twitter user posted a screenshot of a direct message exchange in which a man sent a shirtless photo and wrote: “I’m board [sic] in a hotel room and thought of you.”

The user then posted more screenshots of the same man appearing to threaten legal action if the original tweet was not deleted.

Cycling director dropped from Tour de France after topless photo allegations

Netflix announce Mark Cavendish documentary

15:12 , Lawrence Ostlere

This promises to be an interesting watch – Netflix will follow Mark Cavendish through the Tour de France and follow his quest to clinch that historic 35th Tour de France stage:

Tour de France preview

14:36 , Lawrence Ostlere

Another Tour de France, and another instalment of what is becoming one of the great rivalries of modern cycling: Jumbo-Visma vs UAE Emirates, Jonas Vingegaard vs Tadej Pogacar.

A 21-year-old Pogacar dramatically beat Jumbo’s Primoz Roglic in 2020, then finished ahead of Vingegaard in 2021. So they ganged up on him last year and Vingegaard took his crown. After back-to-back triumphs, Pogacar was deposed and finally some weakness was exposed.

Pogacar did what anyone would do: he went away, worked on himself and came back with some bigger boys, namely Britain’s Adam Yates, a support act and understudy in the form of his life coming into this Tour. Vingegaard, meanwhile, arrives as the champion and sole Jumbo leader, with no Roglic by his side. Roglic is resting after winning his first Giro d’Italia in May.

These changes in team personnel will alter the dynamics of the rivalry. Pogacar was helped impressively in the mountains by the American Brandon McNulty last year, but with McNulty taking time to recover from the Giro too, Yates is a more than adequate replacement who thrives on the hard climbs. Vingegaard may benefit from being Jumbo’s outright leader but Roglic was a useful distraction when they brutally attacked and dismantled Pogacar on stage 11 last year – this time there is no foil, no sidekick, no wingman. Vingegaard has a phenomenally strong team around him, but ultimately Pogacar knows exactly who he has to beat, and that is an advantage.

Read more:

How Tadej Pogacar can beat Jonas Vingegaard and take back Tour de France crown

Mark Cavendish will not allow emotions to get better of him in final Tour de France

14:16 , Lawrence Ostlere

Mark Cavendish knows he will have to put sentiment to one side as he looks for one last hurrah in his final Tour de France.

The 38-year-old will start his 14th and last Tour in Bilbao on Saturday as he moves into the final months of a glittering career, having announced in May that he will retire at the end of the season.

Cavendish is a former world champion and an Olympic medallist, but for the Manxman nothing compares to the Tour, a race in which his 34 career stage wins stand level with Eddy Merckx for the most of all-time.

The next three weeks will be a long goodbye, but Cavendish knows he cannot allow emotions to get the better of him as he looks to taste victory again.

“I know I’ve still got a job to do,” he said. “I know I’ll regret that, not living in the moment of enjoying things. The whole experience of the Tour de France, you can’t describe it. This race gives you the most incredible emotions.

“Unfortunately you don’t really analyse it and appreciate them until afterwards. It’s the same every year. I know it’s my last one but it’s the same, I’ve got a job to do and I can’t really afford those little moments of sentiment.

“But I can definitely appreciate them later.”

Mark Cavendish will not allow emotions to get better of him in final Tour de France

Stage-by-stage guide to the 2023 Tour de France route

13:44 , Lawrence Ostlere

The 2023 Tour de France has all the ingredients of a classic: two leading protagonists ready to tear lumps out of each other in reigning champion Jonas Vingegaard and the deposed Tadej Pogacar; entertaining multi-talented stage hunters Wout van Aert, Mathieu van der Poel, Julian Alaphilippe and Tom Pidcock; the great Mark Cavendish chasing a historic 35th stage win; all facing a brutal route with 56,000m of climbing and four summit finishes.

The Tour begins in the Spanish Basque country on Saturday 1 July, and these hilly routes will throw open the yellow jersey to a wide range of contenders. The race crosses the French border for some flat stages and an early jaunt into the high Pyrenees, where the Col du Tourmalet awaits. The peloton takes on the Puy de Dome volcano on its journey across France towards the Jura Mountains and the Alps, and it is in the mountains that this Tour will ultimately be decided. It all ends on the Champs-Elysees in Paris on Sunday 23 July.

Here is a stage-by-stage guide to how the race will unfold.

Stage-by-stage guide to the 2023 Tour de France route

Jonas Vingegaard ignoring mind games ahead of Tour de France title defence

13:26 , Lawrence Ostlere

Jonas Vingegaard is determined not to fall for any mind games coming from the camp of Tadej Pogacar as the Dane prepares to defend his Tour de France title.

The form of Pogacar, winner of the Tour in both 2020 and 2021, is largely unknown given he has raced only once – cruising to the Slovenian national title last weekend – since breaking his wrist at Liege-Bastogne-Liege.

On Wednesday, UAE Team Emirates Mauro Gianetti declared Lancastrian Adam Yates to be co-leader of the team alongside Pogacar due to the uncertainty. Pogacar followed up as he labelled Vingegaard the clear favourite for yellow.

The 24-year-old even seemed to add a hint of sarcasm as he said: “Jonas is the main guy for the Tour de France. He dominated in the (Criterium du) Dauphine and said he wasn’t in his best shape, so I can’t wait to see what he does in the Tour.”

Full story:

Jonas Vingegaard ignoring Tadej Pogacar’s ‘mind games’ ahead of Tour de France

Simon Yates happy to fly under the radar in Tour de France bid

12:59 , Lawrence Ostlere

Asked what his goals were in this year’s Tour, Yates said: “I’m looking forward to being back, it’s been a long time since I’ve come to the Tour to try for the general (classification) so I’m excited about that.

“Of course it will be difficult but I don’t see why not, I’ll give it a good crack as always...We’re going to take it as it comes. I’m excited about it. It’s a hard start here in the Basque Country and that will help settle things down a bit.

“It’s always a stressful start but maybe it can be a bit more selective compared with Normandy or Brittany or somewhere, so hopefully it settles down a bit.

“As we get further into the race, it’s not difficult to change course and maybe go for stages from breakaways, so the options are there and we’ll take it as it comes.”

Yates’s best Tour finish to date was his seventh place in 2017, but since then he has primarily put his focus on the Giro, claiming two top-10 finishes including that podium finish two years ago.

The Tour has taken a backseat. He won two stages in 2019 and lined up again in 2021, but both times he was seeing what he could do with the form he had built from the Giro rather than targeting the race itself.

“I just wanted a change,” Yates said of the decision to put the Tour ahead of the Giro this season. “The Giro is still a race I love and I wouldn’t mind going back in the future. I needed change in the way my season is structured.

“I was also missing races I wanted to do in the early part of the season like Basque Country and Romandie... those are races I would not normally be able to do with the Giro, so it was not just about the Grand Tours but the whole season in general.”

Simon Yates happy to fly under the radar in Tour de France bid

12:48 , Lawrence Ostlere

Simon Yates is happy to fly under the radar on the list of the contenders for yellow as he returns to the Tour de France this summer.

The 30-year-old is a former Grand Tour winner, victorious in the 2018 Vuelta a Espana, and has stood on the podium of the Giro d’Italia with third place in 2021, yet bookmakers are offering some pretty long odds on the Lancastrian challenging the likes of Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar in France.

And that is fine with Yates, who wants to put up a fight in the general classification as long as he can but is keeping his options open over the next three weeks.

“It can be an advantage but my mindset has not really changed from any other Grand Tour,” the Jayco-Alula rider said. “I’m still very focused, still coming in after a great period of preparation.

“If I fly under the radar maybe that’s better anyway, you guys can take some of the pressure off me and we’ll go from there.”

Yates said he was happy with his preparation despite being forced to pull out of the Tour de Romandie, his last competitive outing in April, through illness.

Tour de France beefs up security to foil potential disruption on the road

12:26 , Lawrence Ostlere

Two motorbikes from the French gendarmerie’s intervention brigade will ride ahead of the Tour de France peloton to prevent protesters from disrupting the race after several incidents last year.

“Two motorbikes will work as a duo. Our goal is to be able to bring an immediate response and avoid the race being stopped,” gendarmerie captain Jean-Francois Prunet told team sporting directors in an organisers’ briefing, of which Reuters obtained a recording on Friday.

“We want to detect movements (in the crowd) that could lead to the race being halted. It should protect the race. I’m asking you firmly to be disciplined if something should happen. Stay on the right side of the road. Do not get out of your cars to go see the riders, let us intervene so that the race can re-start.

“Those two motorbikes will be here for the safety of the riders.”

No link was made by Prunet with the riots that have hit France in the last two days after a teenager was shot dead by police on Tuesday.

Last year, the race was stopped for about 10 minutes by climate activists during the 10th stage and two more attempts to disrupt the race were also made.

Tour de France riders will be cautious after Gino Mader’s death, says Pidcock

12:03 , Lawrence Ostlere

Mader’s death raised questions about rider safety and triggered calls for safety nets in the most dangerous downhill sections but Pidcock said risk will always be part of the sport.

“I guess unless we all want to race round the motor racing circuits, then we have to accept that we will be racing down descents,” he told the Telegraph.

“I think risks are involved in cycling and sometimes - it doesn’t happen often - it can go wrong. I guess we do what we can to mitigate those risks but they’ll never be gone.”

Pidcock, who is also an Olympic gold medallist in cross country mountain biking, will lead Ineos at the Tour, which begins in Bilbao, Spain on Saturday.

Tour de France riders will be cautious after Gino Mader’s death, says Pidcock

11:49 , Lawrence Ostlere

Britain’s Tom Pidcock said Gino Mader’s death during a high-speed descent in Switzerland less than two weeks ago could result in riders being more cautious at the Tour de France.

Swiss rider Mader died aged 26 due to injuries suffered when he crashed into a ravine during the Tour de Suisse. Pidcock’s Ineos Grenadiers team mate Magnus Sheffield crashed separately at the same corner, suffering concussion and spending three days in hospital.

Descending is one of Pidcock’s strengths but the 23-year-old, who won an iconic Tour de France stage at L’Alpe d’Huez last year, said Mader’s death may have an impact on his style.

“I think especially for everyone who was at the race, that was pretty hard hitting,” Pidcock, who also competing in the eight-stage race, told reporters on Wednesday.

“I think I didn’t see a single rider take any risks on the last two stages after that incident. Personally, one of the things that hit me was it happened descending, which is something that I love.

“It showed me what the consequences can be when it goes wrong. I don’t take unnecessary risks but things can happen when we’re riding down a descent at 100kph in lycra.”

Cycling director dropped from Tour de France after topless photo allegations

11:39 , Lawrence Ostlere

An Australian cycling manager has withdrawn from the Tour de France after allegations he sent an unsolicited image of himself to a woman online.

Allan Davis is the sporting director of Lotto Dstny and was set to steer the team through the 21-stage race, which begins this weekend in the Spanish Basque Country.

Earlier this week a Twitter user posted a screenshot of a direct message exchange in which a man sent a shirtless photo and wrote: “I’m board [sic] in a hotel room and thought of you.”

The user then posted more screenshots of the same man appearing to threaten legal action if the original tweet was not deleted.

Full story:

Cycling director dropped from Tour de France after topless photo allegations

Tour de France 2023 LIVE

11:30 , Lawrence Ostlere

Follow all the build-up to the 2023 Tour de France.