3 heavy-weight riders shall start: Pogatchar (🇸🇮 UAE), Vingegaard (🇩🇰 Visma) and Evenepoel (🇧🇪 Soudal-QS).
There will be a few outsiders as well, like Lipowitz (🇩🇪 Bora), Mas (🇪🇸 Movistar) or L. Martinez (🇫🇷 Bahrein).
This will be the last professional race of Romain Bardet (🇫🇷 Picnic). On the other side of the age spectrum, Seixas (🇫🇷 Decathlon) will start his first major race.
During the first half of the race, sprinters and punchers will battle for stages: Milan (🇮🇹 Lidl-Trek), Healy (🇮🇪 EF)…
Stage 6
The last 3 stages are mountain stages, with final climbs. On Friday, we have 2 steep but relatively short climbs in the second half of the course; however, they are separated by 25 of flat valley, so we can suppose that the serious things will wait for the final climb. It presents 3 thirds: the 1st one is rather steep (> 9%), the middle one softer probably around 5%, and the last one of your normal 7-8% grade.
Stage 5
The time trial is past, we go back to the scheme of the first stage, cranking the difficulty a bit up again, and also packing those climbs in the second half of the stage. Despite what I just said, there is just a tiny bump in the last 30 kilometres, so everything is actually packed in the 3rd quarter of the race, which won’t offer much rest.
J. Milan finally found his climbing legs! Unfortunately, he lost his sprinting legs in the process.
Despite the playing field which was proposed, many teams preferred to race for a sprint today.
It was quite a surprise to see Stewart come out of nothing for that win, but very deserved and well done!
(Caveat: I didn’t see any replay of the final, so I only have my first impression – which often turns out faulty after checking – as a base…) With the curves, positioning played a big role, it didn’t look like anyone could produce a really big kick in the last straight line. Then a legless Milan went backwards, and Van der Poel was cooked by his efforts in the previous mile to keep position because he worn his teammates out earlier (also possibly a bit by his staying at the very front of the peloton in the last climb); Penhoët was simply being Penhoët: this guy always finishes around the 5th place, no matter who the guys ahead of him are, you’d put him in a local junior race, he would still finish 4th 😄
Stage 4
The time trial. The length and profile are of very common types these days: 17 km flat, with a climb (about 2 km at 8%) in the middle.
Fairly short TTs seem to be the norm these days. This looks like a slot-in for Evenepoel, but I guess we should also expect the other favourites to be in the mix. Curious to see who will place better between Pog & Vingegaard and if Romeo and Lipowitz can keep up with them.
This looks like a slot-in for Evenepoel, but I guess we should also expect the other favourites to be in the mix.
You predicted it right, except for Jorgenson inserting himself between Vingegaard and Pogatchar (who finished only 4th: we could have expected him to come 2nd, ahead of Vingegaard and outsiders).
if Romeo and Lipowitz can keep up with them.
Both (and Van der Poel too) came close to keep or take the yellow jersey. But Evenepoel crushed everyone, favourites and yesterday’s breakawaymen.
That’s surprisingly strong from Jorgenson. Vingegaard seems to be in great shape, but I wonder if he’s peaking too early.
If he can find another two percent before the TdF I expect he will win, maybe even convincingly. In a way I hope so, I would be disconcerted if Pog can ride a spring like this and still dominate in the tour.
Poole has apparently fallen during the time trial. Does this mean that Bardet will be forced to play GC now, as he is now 45 seconds ahead of the following Picnic riders?
We shall know more after 1 or 2 mountain days, I suppose.
Pogatchar didn’t look wonderful on the attacks of the the first day compared to the others: he always need a little bit of delay to catch up, he never initiated any move, and his relays were sort of fake. However, given the circumstances of the finish, he still won 😆
Stage 3
A rather similar profile again, but with more 3rd category climbs. The last one is located about 15 km from the finish line: short but rather steep, it may be enough to eliminate sprinters like Milan. That is if, unlike yesterday, a team attempts to eliminate him…
Trek didn’t want to pull on the flat to give a chance to Milan, and the rest of the peloton didn’t want to pull or attack, nobody wanted to use the work of the favorites’ teams had done to keep the gap low. Therefore the breakaway made it, in spite of all its effort to fail at it.
I’m going to have to insist you change Vingegaard’s flag from a Norwegian one to a proper Danish one, mate 😂 🇩🇰
I was sure it would happen one day, especially given the fact that, at this size, both flags look rather similar. Anyway, you guys are all the same 😜 the only difference is that you don’t wear pretty trousers when you play curling.
Stage 1
The organiser has placed no less than 7 4th category climbs over this 1st stage, all of them in the second half of the route, which includes a long circuit ridden a bit more than 2 times. Each climb only grants a single mountain point to the first rider.
A stage for sprinters and possibly sprinters-punchers.
Result:
- Pogatchar
- Vingegaard
It is going to be a long week 😬
Weird stage. Did enjoy the finish, though, as much as it promises a predictable race.
Yeah, the same race finish with different names would have reconciled everybody. 😀
Yes, indeed, if you didn’t know any of the riders and this was your first finish you’d be pretty pleased. It had a lot of excitement.
I’m just happy there seems to be more competition for Pogacar this year. Vingegaard seems to be in great shape, almost had Pog in the sprint.
Would I enjoy things more if we had an even field of 5-6 riders who could win here and in the tour? Yes, but we don’t. So I’ll settle for a real competition between the top two.
Stage 2
A stage pretty similar to the first one, with another 6 small climbs to provide a bit of animation for the mountain jersey: two 4th cat and two 3rd cat. (2 & 1 pts) in the beginning of the course, then one 2nd cat. (5, 3, 2 & 1 pts) much later and one last 4th cat. near the end.
As on many (all?) French races, the amount of points offered is meagre, so there is not much point in fighting if you cannot be first. Same goes for the points classification, as there is a single intermediate sprint per day and it only gives points for the first 3 riders: therefore, there cannot be even a small sprint from the peloton after a small breakaway has already gone through the sprint line.
That’s a big difference from the Giro d’Italia which just ended, where points were given to many more riders.
