Here’s the 2020 Tour de France guide. There’s a profile of every stage with a quick take on the day. You’ll also find reference material on the race rules like time bonuses, the points scale for the green and polka-dot jersey, time cuts and plenty more.
This is a blog post but you’ll find a permanent page on the menu at the top of the page or just remember or bookmark inrng.com/tour in case you need it for reference.
The final day of the Dauphiné and another big day the Alps. Before the flag drops the first question is whether Primož Roglič starts, he had a hard crash yesterday and may decide to sit it out, just as Egan Bernal did yesterday.
The same race but with a new route, this year’s Milan-Sanremo is hotter, hillier and longer than usual but remains as accessible as ever to a wide cast of contenders and just as elusive too.
The racing is back and it’s been majestic to see the peloton crossing the landscape in real races instead of riders bobbing around on their balconies for virtual competitions. The blog is back too and time for a quick spin through some current topics before some more detailed pieces in the coming days…
In the last few weeks we’ve seen several virtual races held online. Necessity is the mother of invention and it’s been a way for the sport to continue with all the cancelled races. It’s a poor substitute for real racing that serves only to remind us just how sophisticated a real race can be with tactics, weather and landscapes combining to create something special. Virtual racing seems designed for a limited audience but this is the start and there’s space to trial a variety of formats.
It’s become an annual tradition here to look at the finances of Team Sky/Ineos and Ag2r La Mondiale. Why? Because they’ve been the only teams to file accounts.
Team budgets matter but data are hard to come by. Some of the estimates doing the rounds in recent years are so dubious they’ve managed to get the numbers that have been audited and published wrong. Here’s a closer look at the published accounts and money behind the brown short brigade…
Gianni Mura has died aged 74. He was a legendary sports journalist in Italy and began covering the Tour de France at the age of 21 and was on the race last July too. Mura was sometimes portrayed as a curiosity in recent years for his use of a typewriter which made him look old-fashioned but there was a modern side too. He was one of the first in the pressroom to use a typewriter back in the days when journalists would write their piece in ink and then phone it through to the newspaper. He wrote his columns from the Tour de France last summer on a laptop.
Races are being cancelled, riders are under lockdown. There are bigger things to worry about than bicycle races but they’re both a welcome distraction and a precursor of economic woes ahead.
The longest stage of the race and the last chance for the sprinters before the mountains appear.
Nicolas Portal, the easygoing hardworker who was behind the wheel of the team car for all of Chris Froome’s grand tour wins died aged 40 at home in Andorra.
