The 2023 Tour de France begins its next phase on Tuesday's stage 16 22.4 kilometre time trial from Passy to Combloux, with Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) chasing Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) at the tail end of the start list.
The two have been locking horns for two weeks and have shown little if any effects of the accumulated fatigue of their intensely close-fought competition.
Separated by just 10 seconds in the GC standings, each rider will be looking for any millisecond of time difference. If the Tour de France continues as it has - should the two be tied on time in Paris - their time trial time would be taken down to the 100ths of a second to decide the winner.
- Tour de France Stage 16 Live: The time trial battle for yellow
It will be a tense day to begin an intense final week, and a long build-up as the stage begins at 1:05 p.m. CEST bookended by Danish riders. Michael Mørkøv (Soudal-Quickstep) is the first man down the ramp as the lanterne rouge.
Look for Mikkel Bjerg (UAE Team Emirates) to be one of the quickest of the early starters, taking off at 1:33 p.m. The Dane won the hilly time trial of the Critérium du Dauphiné in June and will be looking to set a benchmark for Pogačar.
Another rider to watch is Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost). He's tied on points for the mountains classification with Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) and will look to set the fastest time up the Côte de Domancy to get the points for the category 2 ascent between kilometre 16.1 and 18.9.
The riders atop the current overall Tour de France standings come much later in the afternoon, with 10th-placed Guillaume Martin (Cofidis) heading down the start ramp at 4:42 p.m.
Pogačar begins his push to nab the maillot jaune at 4:48 p.m. two minutes before Vingegaard.
Organisers are estimating the winning time to be in the 36-minute range, so be sure to be tuned into Cyclingnews for all of the updates before the winner is decided.
