height of 2000 m and the Col de la Loze at 2304 m. The latter was being used for the first time on the Tour and was the finish line for this stage. Prior to the race, defending champion Egan Bernal announced that he was abandoning the race. During the start of the race, five riders started to break away from the main peloton, led by Julian Alaphilippe and Richard Carapaz. At the sprint point, green jersey leader Sam Bennett got ahead of Peter Sagan, adding two points to his lead. On the first climb, Carapaz won over Alaphilippe, both increasing their points but still behind King of the Mountains jersey leader Benoît Cosnefroy. Tadej Pogačar secured third place on the summit while in the yellow jersey group. Because of the fast pace being set by the Team Bahrain McLaren, all of the stage leaders except Carapaz were caught up by the yellow jersey group. While ascending Col de la Loze, yellow jersey leader Primož Roglič and teammate Sepp Kuss, white jersey leader Pogačar, Miguel Ángel López, and Richie Porte were the remaining cyclists from the yellow jersey group, leaving the rest of the leaders' group behind. Carapaz was eventually caught up near the 24% gradient part (the steepest section) of the ascent while Lopez and Kuss went ahead. GC leaders Roglič and Pogačar tried to chase Lopez, but in the end, Lopez emerged as the winner of the stage and climbed to third place in the general classification. As the stage with the highest climb, Lopez also won the Souvenir Henri Desgrange award. Roglič still retained the yellow jersey, while Pogačar got the KoM jersey from Cosnefroy while still retaining the young rider jersey, but his gap from Roglič ballooned to 57 seconds. Bennett retained the green jersey. Alaphilippe won the combativity award for the stage. Aside from Bernal, Mikel Nieve left the race, the first time he abandoned a Grand Tour. Stage 1817 September 2020 – Méribel to La Roche-sur-Foron, With the stage featuring the shortest distance to the intermediate sprint point (14km after start), green jersey leader Sam Bennett and Peter Sagan, along with 30 other cyclists battled it out. Bennett edged Sagan by finishing first and third respectively; hence adding five more points to his lead. After the sprint, the rest of the course featured five mountain classification climbs with the following order: Category 1 Cormet