A look at the contenders for the mountains competition in the Tour de France. The competition’s been exciting in recent years… until it suddenly wasn’t come the third week because the eventual winner in Paris suddenly took lots of points late on and the contest was over, the heroic raider who’d built up a lead thanks to breakaways on mountain stages suddenly got overhauled. This year’s course gives the raiders and pure climbers more of a chance… just.
Here’s a downloadable calendar of the Tour de France for your electronic diary or phone with brief details of each stage. There’s also a look at the TV coverage of the race if you’re planning.
A look at the points competition in the Tour de France, the contenders for the green jersey and a wider preview of the sprinters.
With a week to go to the start in Bilbao, the full 2023 Tour de France guide is online, complete with stage profiles and comment on each day’s course, plus reference materials for the points and mountains competitions, time cuts and more, handy if you want more detail ahead of the race or during it.
Just go to inrng.com/tour for the next four weeks.
You’ll also find the link at the top of the page if you’re on a desktop, or on the drop-down menu for phone readers.
David Lappartient’s on the verge of heading the French Olympic Committee after the sudden resignation of its previous president, there’s an election next week. If members pick him it’ll be his eleventh role, not the eleventh move in his career, instead he could hold 11 concurrent jobs. Even he says this is unsustainable and it’s quite possible he’ll stand down from the UCI in 2025. The race is on for the next UCI President.
The Netflix Tour de France series is out. It’s entertaining at times but don’t expect any great insights or art.
Warning: spoilers
Normally these race reviews try to pick a defining moment when the race was won but this week saw Jonas Vingegaard dominate the Dauphiné, he was giving sprint lead outs one day, putting time into all his rivals the next in the TT, then taking the yellow jersey the next day and winning a mountain stage for good measure while in yellow.
Still for the sake of tradition let’s pick his win in Salins-les-Bains on Stage 5 where he followed Richard Carapaz up the last climb only for Carapaz to realise he just couldn’t sustain the effort, leaving Vingegaard alone and away for the stage win and yellow jersey. It wasn’t a vintage edition but a review and some thoughts all the same.
They’ve saved the best for last with a course that’s as fun to ride on a summer’s day as it should be to race, or watch. There’s the Chartreuse trilogy and then the return of the Bastille above Grenoble.
The race goes wild in the Alps with the first of two tough stages. Don’t miss the early start and finish.
