Greig Leach

The 19th stage of the Tour was neutralized as the peloton sped down the back side of the Col de l'Iseran. It took awhile for the message to get through to the men on the road. Apparently, Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) knew ahead of Egan Bernal (Ineos). It seemed that the young Colombian was skeptical of what the Brit was telling him. Shortly after I painted this, you could see Bernal on his radio getting the news. What they couldn't see was that there was a very bad hail storm in the valley before the final climb of the day. From aerial shots, snow plows and front loaders were desperately trying to clear the road, but the water run off was way too dangerous. They could have resumed the race at the foot of the final climb, but getting everyone to that point may have proved impossible. Instead, since the stage was to be a mountain top finish anyway, they decided to make the finish at the top of the mountain they had just surrmounted.