An incredible day of tactical racing has set the tone for the weekend

Ireland’s Dan Martin and Nicolas Roche survived another nerve-shredder at the Tour de France yesterday, the duo crossing the line in the same time as stage winner Marcel Kittel after avoiding a nasty pile-up with two kilometres to go.

So, there it is: Lance Armstrong has admitted to Oprah Winfrey that his dominance of cycling from the late 1990s to the mid-2000s was tainted — to put it mildly — by performance-enhancing drugs.