Tour de France: Vingegaard clings on to yellow jersey as Poels wins stage 15 – live reaction | Tour de France 2023

Stage winner, Poels has been chatting about his victory in the obligatory post-race interview. The 35-year-old is celebrating his first ever Grand Tour stage win, during what is his tenth Tour. He says:

“I’ve always dreamed to win a stage in the Tour, and especially with what happened with the team in the last three weeks with Gino [Mader]. I mean, all the emotions come then. It’s just incredible to win a stage, which was always my dream to win a monument and a stage in the Tour. I’m super happy.”

He says he only started to believe he’d get the win in the last kilometre. “I had to keep fighting,” he says, referencing the battle with van Aert.

If you missed Poels crossing the line with all the action going on behind, here’s a video from the official Tour de France account.

The top five on General Classification

The top five on stage 15

Phew. That was quite a spicy finish. Updates on standings and a race report from my colleague on the scene will be coming in shortly. I’m going to wrap this up, thank you all for your messages and get ready for my post live blog bike ride.

Vingegaard is coming round but Pogacar manages to roll over the line with him. There is nothing to separate these two, but Pogacar did well try. Rodriguez comes across not long after to cement his place as third on the GC.

Pogacar goes again with 500m to go. He can’t drop Vingegaard.

Pogacar attacks. Vingegaard is on him. There’s 700m to go.

This is tense. It’s 1km to go. What is going to happen? I’m on the edge of my seat.

It’s 2km left for the yellow jersey group. The trio are still together, Yates is still away. Van Aert crosses the line second and is 2min 5sec down.

Adam Yates has just ridden away from Pogacar and Vingegaard. Rodriguez is back. What’s happening??

Wout Poels of Bahrain Victorious wins stage 15!!

1km to go: Poels is now more than 1min 30sec clear but van Aert is trying to hang on for second. Pretty remarkable ride from the Belgian given the amount of climbing in this stage.

2km to go: In the yellow jersey group, Gaudu, Rodriguez and Kuss have all been dropped. It’s now just Adam Yates, Pogacar and Vingegaard.

3km to go: Poels’ lead keeps increasing. It’s more than 1min now. He looks unstoppable. Meanwhile, Hindley has dropped off the back of the yellow jersey group but Rodriguez and Gaudu are still in there. Could the final podium positions be decided today?

4km to go: Pidcock has just flown back into the yellow jersey group with a trademark descent. He’d been dropped on Côte des Amerands.

5km to go: Back to the action. In the battle of the Wouts, Poels has extended his lead over van Aert to 40sec. It looks like the stage win could be his.

6km to go: As the lead riders start the ascent up Saint-Gervais Mont-Blanc, it feels about time to share the words Tom from North Carolina sent me earlier. He emailed in to say: “So excited about today’s stage to the top of Mont Blanc! Who do you fancy: Pogi or Jonas?”

7km to go: UAE Emirates have now taken control of the yellow jersey group and are pushing hard up the Côte des Amerands. Poels has gone over the top of the climb with a 30sec advantage over Soler and van Aert. Now they head straight for the final climb…

9km to go: Warren Barguil of Arkéa–Samsic looks to have good legs, as he breaks off the front of the chase group. Van Baarle has finally finished his turn on the front of the yellow jersey group.

9km: June in Canada has emailed in to ask after Canadian cyclist Woods. He’s back in the peloton so won’t be troubling the leaders today. Elsewhere, the chase group has hit the climb and Ciccone is eyeing up some more mountain points.

10km: Poels hasn’t waited long. He’s launched an attack and van Aert hasn’t reacted.

11km to go: Here it comes…the leading riders, Poels and van Aert, have started the climb. Soler is just behind, having been distanced on the descent.

18km to go: The lead group are approaching the Côte des Amerands. It’s a second category climb as it’s only 2.7km long but it has an average gradient of 10.9% and a max of 17%. It’ll be a real stinger at this stage in the day. After this, they’ll have a brief respite before going straight into the final climb to the finish.

24km to go: For those following the fortunes of Petit, he’s still hanging on in the gruppetto (20min behind).

29km to go: Now that van Aert is in the lead group, the gap to the peloton has gone out to nearly 7min. Meanwhile, the remainder of the breakaway is 50secs behind and has 15 riders in it, including Ciccone, Guillaume Martin, Thibaut Pinot and Mikel Landa. The green jersey group is 19min behind.

Crash for Neilands in the front group

42km to go: The lead group now contains Soler, van Aert, Krists Neilands and Wout Poels.

46km to go: Both van Aert and Woods have broken off the group to join Soler. Has van Aert been given the go-ahead to go for the stage win? Meanwhile, van Baarle continues to lead the main group up the Col de Aravis. The gap stays at around 6min. No major talking points in the GC battle yet.

47km to go: Marc Soler of UAE Emirates has attacked. Ciccone, van Aert and Woods are trying to limit the damage.

49km to go: We’re back on the next climb – the Col de Aravis. Really didn’t get much of a break, did they?

Back in the peloton, Jumbo-Visma are setting a high pace with Dylan van Baarle on the front. The gap has been reduced to just over 6min from around 9min earlier.

54km to go: Ciccone goes level with Powless on the King of the Mountains classification. He’ll want to secure a lead on the next climb, which is coming up shortly after a brief descent.

55km to go: Rui Costa is not going to repeat history as he has been caught with 1.5km to the summit. The chase group – now the lead group – has been reduced to 24 riders, including Ciccone and van Aert.

56km to go: Could Rui Costa be looking to repeat history? The Portuguese rider went solo up the same ascent 10 years ago to take the stage 19 win in the 2013 Tour de France.

57km to go: It has now been confirmed that Powless is off the back and about 1min 10sec behind the Ciccone group. He could be struggling to stay in the polka dot jersey today.

59km to go: False alarm. Powless is back in. Sorry for any distress caused. Rui Costa is now on his own and has a gap of about 45sec.

61km to go: Bad news for those fans from the USA, as Powless is dropping off the breakaway group. Rui Costa, however, has made it across to Haller and they’re working together.

62km to go: Riders are trying to stay cool any way they can.

64km to go: Rui Costa of Intermarché–Circus–Wanty has attacked to try and bridge to Haller. It looks tough and hot out there. In fact, this stage has the second highest amount of elevation of all the stages in this year’s Tour. The highest amount of elevation comes on Wednesday’s stage next week, a day after the individual time trial.

74km to go: Marco Haller of Bora-Hansgrohe has attacked on the latest descent. According to the commentary, he is a big Arsenal fan.

The next climb, Col de la Croix Fry, is coming up in around 7km. It has been used in the Tour six times previously and was last ridden during the 2018 edition.

79km to go: Bryan Coquard of Cofidis has just had a bike change. His handlebars had snapped in half. Didn’t look great and can only imagine how tense it must make him feel having an issue like that.

81km to go: Time for some more data from the Tour.

85km to go: Alaphilippe and Lutsenko have been caught. With 85km to go and four more categorised climbs to come, there are 39 riders now in the leading group. Ciccone and Powless will be keen to hoover up as many mountain points as they can.

87km to go: Powless, who along with Vingegaard held 54 points on the mountain classification, has now gone back into the lead and has 58 points. Ciccone though is hot on his heels and has pulled back a further two points with his sprint. I know there’s quite a few of you tuning in from the USA and keeping an eye on Powless.

96km to go: Lutsenko reaches the summit of Col de la Forclaz de Montmin with Alaphilippe behind. They have a gap of 40 seconds on the chasers. Ciccone outsprints Powless for third place.

98km to go: With 2km to go on the climb, it’s as you were with Alaphilippe and Lutsenko still holding a 35sec advantage. Ciccone is speeding up in the chasing group.

100km to go: With a subject header that has delighted me (“Annecy/Pastries/Weeping”), Duncan has emailed in to share a story about Annecy, pastries…and weeping. Here it is:

“On the subject of pastries and Annecy, a few years back my wife and I each consumed a staggering mille-feuile (sic)…we then set off immediately and rode the 17km climb from the lake up to the ski station at Semnoz. I could taste the custard all the way to the top and was weeping a little by the end.”

103km to go: Alaphilippe and Lutsenko take a 30sec lead into the base of the first climb, Col de la Forclaz de Montmin. This climb might whittle that 35-man breakaway down a bit.

Alaphilippe wins the intermediate sprint