Dowsett crashes........

coming up to the main sections of cobbles shortly

Tony Martin takes the stage win AND the maillot jaune! GET IN!

Top class from TM - delighted for him.

Sky let him go I think........they were on the front and didn't react

Maybe that's why he chose to go then because he figured they wouldn't chase him and it gave him time whilst the other teams tried to organise

Froome happy to hand over the jersey

If ever a cyclist deserved Yellow Tony martin does what a great bike rider he is

Looks that way, I suspect he went earlier than he maybe planned knowing that Froome wouldn't be displeased about getting out of the yellow.

Happy that Froome survived someone attempting to take him out earlier on.

Dowsett finished about 26 minutes behind the winner - he has several stitches in one of his arms, but other than that he's alright. At least he finished within the time limit if my interpretation of the rule book is correct.

They cram them in early so you can get the last 20km uninterrupted, so we have to put up with it. Actually, just noticed today that it is also on S4C i.e. Welsh Channel 4 so you can try that as well. There'd only be one guy they interview at the end, mind.

I forgot today but yesterday I put the commentary on radio 5live Sports Extra from 3pm

just turned the sound down on the telly

They have Simon Brotherton and Rob Hales but obviously no adverts

too late now though as the cricket starts tomorrow and the Tour gets 'jocked off'

Don't drive like this at home video ...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7BCSpRasAU

He did - time limit was about 40 mins today.

It's a designated 'sprinters stage' today with enhanced points and a big points gap for the winner over the placed riders

Chance for Cav to get back in the mix

But it's already looking a tough stage with rain, wind, crashes....

I'm flicking around to check the cricket and avoid the adverts, recipes, interviews in foreign languages, pre-recorded segments with Greg Lomond etc so I haven't got much of an idea what's going on........

I'm finding it difficult to get involved with so many interruptions......although obviously checking the cricket is my choice

The Manx Moaner can whinge as much as he likes about his teammates but it's becoming increasingly evident HE'S the problem.

Any thoughts on Sagan getting a tilt at GC at some point?

I don't think he's good enough on the climbs to ever be a GC contender in a grand tour

GoPro footage of today's stage's tumbles: https://youtu.be/EMapm4gU8CI

I think he'd run the risk of ruining himself at what he already excels at if he tried to train himself into a Grand Tour GC type.

Yah, I can see both points of view. I don't think he'd need a radical remodel to compete though. Wiggins was hardly a good climber and he was piss awful descending. Given the right route I think he has it in him.

Good points. Sagan has way more talent than Wiggins who wouldn't have stood a cat in hell's chance of winning without Froome wet nursing him up the mountains. if a future Tour has a similar profile to that of 2012 then, as you say, I don't think it would need radical changes for Sagan to be a serious GC contender.

I know very little about cycling but just watched the tour on Eurosport and have to say what awful coverage of the climax. Crash near the end and the cameras seemed to concentrate on that and not on the finish
Felt sorry for the commentators who were completely at a loss (assume they are in a studio watching the same pictures as us)

Maybe I am off the mark with this but to a casual viewer like me, I would have liked a better commentary

The coverage was fine on ITV4. Look like Martin will be out with a broken collarbone. At least the crash was his fault

With at least two major overall race leaders brought down by the crash, it was a situation where the French tv director couldn't win. Ignoring either the crash or the finish, either way there would be criticism. Also, there's zero time to make a decision and the director can only select what the camera operators are feeding. IMHO the coverage was as good as possible given the circumstances.

There's only 1 lot of pictures........all the commentary teams have the same pictures which are supplied by the home broadcaster

I was watching on ITV and the commentators were saying that we need to see the race finish instead of the crash

as it turns out we did see the last few hundred meters of the winner but we missed him going clear ...........Sagan looked to be holding back waiting for someone else to lead out

good tactical win from Stybar (?)

Tony Martin has just said on his twitter feed that he has a broken collar bone. End of the road for him, then, sadly.

Apparently Nibali is blaming Froome for the crash on twitter, love to know how he came to that conclusion, looked like Martin clipped the wheel in front of him to me.