Watch: Tour de France 2018 stage 17 highlights

After a rest day in Carcassonne and a long opening stage between Carcassonne and Bagnères-de-Luchon, the 2018 Tour de France tackles an incredibly short 65km stage between Bagnères-de-Luchon and Saint-Lary-Soulan Col du Portet.

If the length of the race isn't innovative enough, the stage will start with a Moto GP style grid start with the highest placed riders on GC at the front of the grid and the organisers hoping that they will attempt to attack early as they climb the Col de Peyresourde straight from the gun.

The Montée de Peyragudes is the first of two first category climbs on the route with a distance of 14.9km and an average gradient of 6.7 per cent.

The second climb of the day is the Col de Val Louron-Azet, which is steeper with an average gradient of 8.3 per cent, but also much shorter at 7.4km.

This climb is followed by a technical descent, before the business end of affairs on the hors-categorie Col du Portet which is 16km in length and very rarely dips below eight per cent.

What's more, the finish of the stage is at 2,215m - the highest point of the 2018 Tour de France - meaning that the altitude and thin air could be a factor.

With the yellow jersey still very much up for grabs, this is one of three stages that Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb) and perhaps even Chris Froome (Team Sky) have to wrestle the race lead away from Geraint Thomas (Team Sky).

Catch-up with the best bits of the stage or read up on everything that happened on this long day of racing in our stage 15 report.

The 2018 Tour de France started in Noirmoitier en l’Île on Saturday July 7 and finishes three weeks later in Paris on Sunday, July 29.