Bonjour le Tour! Hello and welcome to live coverage of Julian Alaphilippe's second day of destiny as the Frenchman bids to defend his yellow jersey from Egan Bernal et al in Stage 19 of the Tour de France...

The highest paved pass in the Alps is coming right up. We sent Juan Antonio Flecha up there on a recon ride...

It's Alexey Lutsenko who wins the intermediate sprint ahead of Tony Gallopin. Back with the pack and it's still Castroviejo who sets the tempo. Wout Poels is back with Thomas and Bernal, but both Moscon and Kwiatkowski have been dropped early on today for Ineos.

Aru, De Gendt and Gesbert are trying to rejoin the leading group of 21 riders ahead of the intermediate sprint at Bessans. The pack is at 1'55".

It's Caruso who once again takes maximum points over the top of this climb ahead of his Bahrain Merida teammate Nibali - and his raid on the polka dot jersey gets another 3-point lift. The pack is still 1'45" down. The Col d'Iseran coming up.

Aru and Bettiol have also been dropped by the break, Bauke Mollema too. The gap back to the yellow jersey group, meanwhile, has grown to 1'45".

We're now onto the third categorised climb, the Cat.3 Col de la Madeleine (3.9km at 5.6%).

According to L'Equipe, Pinot has been suffering with a "vast internal muscle tear". We have no idea where or when he picked up the injury but he clearly couldn't continue riding today. Groupama-FDJ have confirmed this.

And the moment a tearful Pinot got into his team car...

Kreuziger, De Gendt and Gesbert have been dropped by the break while Soler has voluntarily dropped back to the pack to help Quintana and Landa. Movistar still have Valverde and Verona up the road in the break.

We're approaching the half-way point of today's stage and it's still all in the balance with that large break just 55 seconds ahead of a chasing pack that is deprived of Thibaut Pinot, the Frenchman who was in fifth place this morning, who had withdrawn in emotional circumstances with a muscular tear on his left leg.

If you're just joining us, here's the big news...

Magnus Cort Nielsen has zipped clear of the break. The Dane on a one-man mission to save Astana's Tour following Jakob Fuglsang's withdrawal a few days ago. Matthews, meanwhile, has been caught by the pack.

Australia's Matthews has been dropped by the break. The gap back to the peloton is still just above the minute mark.

Deceuninck-QuickStep have come to the front of the pack to pace their man Alaphilippe on this descent ahead of the gradual rise to the foot of the next climb. They have no-one in the break but will be wary of Uran up the road, as well as those three riders for Movistar. Right, I need to get some lunch. Back in 5.

What a hectic - and emotional - start to the stage. Meanwhile, the leaders still only have 50 seconds. The 29 riders are: Dylan van Baarle (Ineos), Patrick Konrad (Bora-Hasngrohe), Tony Gallopin (AG2R-La Mondiale), Vincenzo Nibali and Damiano Caruso (Bahrain-Merida), Sébastien Reichenbach (Groupama-FDJ), Alejandro Valverde, Marc Soler and Andrey Amador (Movistar), Pello Bilbao, Gorka Izagirre, Magnus Cort and Alexey Lutsenko (Astana), Laurens De Plus (Jumbo-Visma), Rigoberto Uran, Alberto Bettiol and Michael Woods (EF Education First), Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott), Dan Martin and Fabio Aru (UAE Team Emirates), Giulio Ciccone (Trek-Segafredo), Jesus Herrada (Cofidis), Guillaume Martin (Wanty-Groupe Gobert), Roman Kreuziger (Dimension Data), Warren Barguil and Elie Gesbert (Arkéa-Samsic).