Colombian cyclist Richard Carapaz of the EF Education-EasyPost team won the royal 20th stage of the Tour de France, BTA reports. He covered the 170-kilometer mountain course in 4:59.39 hours and recorded one of his most prestigious victories in this year's edition of the race. Carapaz finished 26 seconds ahead of Belgian Remko Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora), who with his performance practically guaranteed himself second place in the general classification. American Sepp Kuss (Visma-Lease a Bike) finished third, 31 seconds behind the winner. Kus led for much of the stage, but two crashes in the final kilometers deprived him of the opportunity to fight for success.
General classification leader Tadej Pogačar (UAE) finished fourth, 1:05 behind Carapaz. The Slovenian rode in control and maintained his comfortable lead before the final stage. His teammate Isaac Del Toro finished fifth with the same time.
Pogačar is on the verge of his fifth Tour de France title. Before the final stage, he has a total time of 72:53.44 hours and leads Evenepoel by 6:26 minutes. Third in the general classification is Del Toro, who is just over three minutes behind the Belgian.
In the remaining classifications, Dane Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) remains the leader in the battle for the green jersey with 527 points. Carapaz leads the climbers with 156 points, a 56-point lead over Pogacar, after winning two of the toughest mountain stages in this year's race. Isaac Del Toro continues to lead the standings for best young rider.
Meanwhile, it has emerged that the 21st and final stage of this year’s Tour de France has been shortened to ease the burden on the emergency services battling the large-scale forest fires in France, particularly in the Gironde region, the organisers said, as reported by AFP.
As a result, the final stage, which finishes in Paris, will be just 89 km long, down from the originally planned 133 km. After lining up at the start in Toury, the riders will travel by coach to Paris, where the race is scheduled to resume at around 17:50 local time.
The peloton will complete two additional laps of the Champs-Élysées before passing through Montmartre, with the finish scheduled for around 19:45.