The profile doesn’t do today’s course justice, this is the most technical time trial seen in the Tour de France for years, the kind of route where even a team manager will sweat the car around this course. To make things even harder, there’s a high chance of a thunderstorm and a downpour.
It’s a crucial moment in the race. If Chris Froome seems unshakable in yellow, the other places are still up for grabs.
Rui Costa won the stage today but this wasn’t his only prize. He also collected the Prix de la Combativité.
Each day a rider in the Tour de France wins this prize and gets to stand on the podium, wins some cash and wears a red number on their back the next day. Today it was normal that Costa won, he got in the breakaway and then dropped his rivals à la pédale on the Col de Manse to leave no doubt he was the strongest and most aggressive rider.
But what might be a noble idea often seems to be a consolation prize. Here’s a quick look at this often overlooked award and how it’s awarded every day.
The final week of the Tour de France sees the race head into the Alps. As soon as the route was unveiled last October the talk turned to the tough stages in the Alps, almost to the exclusion of what came before. Now we’ve had two weeks of hard racing with attacks and surprises along the way that have left riders tired and many are anxious about the stages to come.
Today has breakaway branded in bold on it although Peter Sagan and his Cannondale team might have second thoughts.
Team Sky have been fielding doping questions at their press conference. Whistled by some on the way up Ventoux, last night’s TV news in France on TF1 discussed “suspicions” and this morning’s radio bulletins, France Info, relayed a similar topic. The story beat genuine news of positive tests in athletics where some of the biggest names have been caught. It shows how suspicion in cycling appears to trump actual positive samples in athletics.
Just like the profile above, Mont Ventoux dominates the landscape of Provence, as ominous as a volcano. It’s also a special place in cycling history, a climb that is rarely used but often cited.
Today’s stage is the longest in the race and finishes at the top of arguably the hardest climb in this year’s race. To put the distance in context, this as long as a spring classic with a giant mountain climb added to the end and this after two weeks of racing. If that’s not big enough for you, it’s Bastille Day, the French national holiday and huge crowds are expected.
Sandwiched between yesterday’s surprise “gone with the wind” action and tomorrow’s Bastille Day Mont Ventoux bonanza, today’s stage might struggle. But it’s got all the ingredients of a good stage with a varied route, some late hills and even crosswinds too as it makes its way to Lyon.
As well as the preview of all the action, there’s also a short film below that shows the reality for many an ex-pro once they retire from the sport.
Another day, another sprint? Yes and if I’d pencilled in today’s run as the most boring of this year’s Tour de France there’s always room surprise, especially for the superstitious on Stage 13. Yesterday we saw Chris Froome narrowly avoid a crash whilst team mate Edvald Boasson Hagen left the race with a broken shoulder.
There are not many chances left in the Tour for the sprinters. Perhaps tomorrow but that’s uncertain and then all that remains is Paris. With so few chances left for the sprinters to win this means high pressure to deliver.
The Tour goes to Tours, better know in cycling as the finish of Paris-Tours, the so-called “sprinters classic” held every autumn. No sprinter is towering over their rivals and the various sprint trains seem evenly matched too which promises another close finish, especially because today’s stage ends with two bends in the final kilometre.
A stage to reshape the overall classification. If the 2013 Tour is all about the mountains, today is the exception with a flat course that’s exposed to the wind, a route to scare the climbers.
But it’s short and the time gaps should be deliberately small in order to preserve the suspense of the race. Tony Martin is everyone’s pick to win the race but the suspense comes in seeing how the overall classification changes.
With the Pyrenees in the rear view mirror there’s less to look forward to this week in terms of terrain and scenery. But we’ve still got the biggest race on and it’s rare to see the top sprinters go head to head in the season, the Tour is one of the few times it happens and today should be the day.
The race cuts across Brittany but there’s coastal section for the finish where crosswinds or simply the fear of a crosswind could be enough to panic the peloton.