Ecuador’s Richard Carapaz won stage 18 of the Tour de France following a commanding breakaway.

The EF Education-Easypost rider brilliantly accelerated away from his rivals with intuitive and canny riding, finishing 45 seconds ahead of Switzerland’s Mauro Schmid of Jayco-Alula and Matteo Jorgenson of Visma-Lease a Bike.

Meanwhile, sickness appears to be making its way through overall leader Tadej Pogacar’s UAE Team Emirates-XRG squad after key domestique Brandon McNulty abandoned the race mid-stage.

Slovenian Pogacar remains in the yellow jersey by four minutes 32 seconds over Belgium’s Remco Evenepeol of Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe and six minutes 51 seconds over UAE team-mate Isaac del Toro of Mexico.

Thursday’s mountainous 185.2km stage from Voiron to Ocieres Merlette marked the first of three gruelling days in the French Alps, and several riders formed a number of breakaways on a hot day on the road.

But Carapaz’s combative riding was the best to watch. With his gold chain and giant crucifix swinging from side to side, he danced on the pedals to try to launch himself away from the hard-charging Valentin Paret-Peintre of Soudal Quick Step – who is wearing the King of the Mountains jersey on behalf of KOM leader Pogacar.

When Paret-Peintre avoided helping the pair extend their lead over Jorgenson and Schmid, Carapaz virtually stopped in the steep tarmac, baulking Paret-Peintre, and as the Frenchman then assumed a period of recovery, Carapaz launched again, leaving an exhausted and out-of-rhythm Paret-Peintre broken.

Denmark’s Mads Pedersen extended his lead in the green jersey classification to 32 points, but remains vulnerable to Belgium’s Jasper Philipsen.

Pogacar, 27, retains the King of the Mountain jersey, but only by a point, as does Del Toro in the white young rider’s jersey.

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Arsenal are set to make a £70m offer for Newcastle captain Bruno Guimaraes.

Brazil international Guimaraes is a priority target for the Gunners, with the midfielder keen to join the Premier League champions.

Newcastle are aware of the 28-year-old’s preference to join Arsenal this summer.

Talks over a potential move for Guimaraes are ongoing and are believed to have accelerated in recent days, though it remains to be seen if Arsenal‘s £70m offer will meet Newcastle‘s valuation.

Arsenal are determined to strengthen their squad with high quality players this summer as they look to build on last season’s title.

The north London side were interested in signing Morgan Rogers, who has joined Chelsea for £117m, from Aston Villa – but refused to go higher than their £80m valuation of the player.

It is understood Arsenal were given the opportunity to match Chelsea‘s offer for Rogers but declined.

Similarly, Arsenal have a hardline maximum valuation of Guimaraes and are unwilling to overpay despite their desire to sign the midfielder.

Arsenal also have a major interest in Villa defender Ezri Konsa and have enquired about the England international’s availability.

Konsa is Arsenal‘s first-choice defensive target.

The Gunners also have Como’s Jacobo Ramon on a list of defenders they would like to bring in, but it is understood clauses in the Spaniard’s contract make a deal difficult.

Having missed out on Rogers, the Gunners remain in the market for attacking reinforcements.

Atletico Madrid forward Julian Alvarez is Arsenal‘s dream target, but the player’s current desire to join Barcelona and the cost – which could exceed the British record fee of £125m set when Alexander Isak moved from Newcastle to Liverpool – pose obvious difficulties.

Arsenal have also explored a move for Paris St-Germain winger Bradley Barcola.

Portland Trail Blazers owner Tom Dundon is at it again.

On Wednesday, The Athletic’s Jason Quick reported that the Trail Blazers fired or allowed many employees involved with the team’s broadcast to leave, including Kevin Calabro and Trevor Demers, the play-by-play callers on television and radio, respectively. Those moves follow several cost-cutting measures that have come since the Carolina Hurricanes’ owner purchased the team at the end of March.

The moves have largely targeted the business side of the Trail Blazers, although the team did not send their three players on two-way contracts on the road in the first two games of the playoffs, for which general manager Joe Cronin took the blame. The Blazers fired more than 70 employees in May, and did not hand out T-shirts to fans for its playoff games against the San Antonio Spurs in April.

In NBA circles, the most common reaction has been to criticize Dundon for being, well, cheap. In many of those cases, that seems like the right reaction. However, the NBA is a league with its share of “keeping up with the Joneses” spending. Dundon might not be doing it very artfully, but it is surprising it took this long for a new owner to decide NBA organizations are perhaps more bloated than necessary.

A few disclaimers are necessary. First off, broadcasts are one of the most direct links a team has to its fans, and in a smaller market such as Portland, that link is likely more important than for teams that are regularly on national television. Cutting back on a broadcast doesn’t help anybody. Beyond that, nobody should be begrudged for making a living in the NBA. If you think the salary of the fourth member of the media relations team or the hotel costs for three extra players is the reason tickets are so expensive, please acquaint yourself with reality. The savings will not be passed down to the consumer.

Finally, for those who believe this is all part of Dundon’s quest to crater interest in the team so he can move the Trail Blazers out of Portland, let me be unequivocal in saying the fans at the Moda Center are consistently among the best in the NBA and the league should make sure the team stays where it is. The Athletic reported this week that the team considers itself and the city “very far apart” on terms to pay for the renovation of the Moda Center. At the same time, the Lenovo Center in Raleigh, N.C., where the Hurricanes play, is undergoing $300 million in renovations. Trail Blazers fans are understandably worried. Skepticism is warranted.

With that said, the league has been heading down this path for a while now. Under Mark Cuban’s ownership, the Dallas Mavericks became known for having nearly an assistant coach for every player on the roster. (The Mavericks also were at the forefront of tricking out locker rooms.) These days, walk onto a practice floor at a team’s home base and the players are reliably outnumbered by other staff — coaches, video coordinators, members of the medical staff, members of the front office and so on. And it’s not as if the NBA has notably cut down on injuries or radically improved skill development.

While you will frequently hear players rave about the coaches they work with individually or the help they are getting on the health side, it would also be reasonable to conclude that players are going to put their own salaries, opportunities and chances to win above those relative luxuries — unless, of course, they conclude that the luxuries help with their priorities.

That is where this line of thinking could get really interesting. In the NFL, teams such as the Cincinnati Bengals and Arizona Cardinals have reputations for skimping on frills. While neither of those teams has been a model of success, the Bengals were in the Super Bowl in 2022, while both have gone through the regular ups and downs that most teams go through in a league that has cultivated competitive parity.

And hey, would you look at that, the NBA is trying to go down a similar road, with eight champions in the last eight years and a CBA that restricts the ability for teams with wealthier owners to outspend others in putting together a roster.

Now, truly competitive people would accept that and identify organizational accoutrements as areas on which teams with more money to spend as potential competitive advantages. But if an owner has concluded that player talent is by far the biggest factor in winning, why would they splurge on the other stuff?

In short, you’d have to believe the other stuff leads to winning. There are reasonable arguments to have about all of that, but there have to be diminishing returns at some point, as teams approach nine-figure expenditures on practice facilities. What spending is necessary? What spending leads to winning? Those are good questions, ones that have not been conclusively answered.

Fans have no reason to be terribly invested in whether owners turn year-over-year profits, especially when there is no evidence that franchise values will plateau anytime soon. But humans, even (especially?) billionaires, tend to care about maximizing income.

As Bill Gates explained to Homer Simpson when buying out Compu-Global-Hyper-Mega-Net, “I didn’t get rich by writing a lot of checks.”

None of that is to say Dundon is some financial visionary, finding a way to streamline the Trail Blazers while not sacrificing winning. (Although it would be strange if he were not emboldened by his experience with the Hurricanes, who have become one of the most successful teams in the NHL during his tenure, winning the Stanley Cup this year.) Dundon has yet to prove that his methods work in the NBA. Beyond that, you didn’t have to be a genius to look at NBA teams and see there were some inefficiencies.

But Dundon is willing to be the bad guy, risking a reputational hit in the name of increasing profit. You don’t have to like it or even respect it. It is a wonder, though, that someone didn’t brazenly push back on teams’ spending escalation long ago.