Being July 14, when they celebrate Bastille Day in France, the home fans will be hoping for a French stage winner. With the general classification fully established at Luz-Ardiden, the main contenders will be happy to have an easy day before the even more important third Pyrenean stage coming up. Only 13km separates the end of the Aubisque descent from the finish in Lourdes, so a solo rider escaping on the downhill could easily win the stage. If not, two sharp downhill turns in the last kilometer might influence an eventual group sprint.
July 16 Stage St. Gaudens to Plateau de Beille, This is one of the two toughest stages of the Tour de France, with seven major climbs, almost 16, feet 4, meters of elevation gain and a finish atop the 16km-long Plateau de Beille that has several percent pitches in its opening half.
Little by little I ran out of gas. I was completely empty at the end. Less than an hour later, after racing on 10km of wide boulevards through the Montpellier suburbs, the final sprint should be fast and spectacular.
This stage has a sting in the tail in the form of a 20km finishing loop that climbs the opening 4km of the Col Bayard with some percent pitches before veering off to the Col de Manse summit, which is 1, feet meters above the finish in Gap. The descent via La Rochette is tricky and steep — where, in , Joseba Beloki fell and sustained career-ending injuries and Armstrong cyclo-crossed down the mountainside to avoid crashing. This first of three stages in the Alps heads into Italy via the Cat.
On a narrow, very twisting back road, this 6. This stage heads back into France over the mighty hors-cat Col Agnel, which at 9, feet 2, meters is the highest mountain pass this year. The first edition of the Tour de France, held in , was shorter in total than the modern race, totalling under 2, kilometres. However, the race took place over just six stages, meaning each stage averaged around kilometres which is extraordinarily long when compared to modern stages.
The speed of the Tour de France has also changed dramatically since the Tour was first raced in the early 20th century.
Riders now have a plethora of science and technology available to them to optimise methods of training, while the quality of apparel worn by riders has also improved with time. The winner of the inaugural Tour de France Maurice Garin averaged The edition was the first to follow the first World War and the winner averaged just 24 kilometres per hour. Incidentally, just ten riders finished the race, which remains the fewest number of riders to finish a Tour de France.
At the modern day Tour de France, the victorious rider usually averages around kph. In , Chris Froome won the Tour de France whilst averaging 41kph which is the fastest average speed over the previous ten years. Australia will have its first winner of the Tour de France after Cadel Evans took the yellow jersey from Andy Schleck in today's The year-old Evans is an emotional man beneath his often awkward, sometimes closed, facade and he wept in the arms of his colleagues in the Swiss-American BMC team as he prepared to accept the maillot jaune for the first time in this year's race.
He had held it briefly in and , but, this time, one day in yellow will be enough to make him the fourth Anglophone winner in 98 years of the race, after two Americans, Greg LeMond and Lance Armstrong, and an Irishman, Stephen Roche. It is three decades since the year-old Phil Anderson, born in London but brought up in Melbourne, took the chance of moving to Europe and joining an amateur club outside Paris. A curiosity at first, he quickly turned professional and, in , competing against the likes of Bernard Hinault and Lucien Van Impe, he became the first rider from outside Europe to lead the Tour.
Since then, half a dozen Australian riders have won stages, most of them as sprinters, but Evans is the first since the pioneer to make himself a contender for overall victory. The bunch stayed together until the race touched the final 40km, when Britain's Ben Swift Sky launched a solo attack. The break scooped up the first six places at the intermediate sprint, with Cavendish winning the bunch gallop for seventh spot.
Green jersey rival Jose Rojas Movistar placed ninth. The escape group worked well together, and built up a lead of over 40 seconds as the race hit the final 25km.
It was only in the final 12km that the gap started to slip to under 30 seconds, as the sprinters' teams hit the front of the peloton. As the peloton neared on the final lap, all but Swift and Bak sat up the duo maintaining a slim eight second gap. Bak then continued solo for a short while but both he and Swift were swept up, bringing the race together in the final two kilometres.
HTC-Highroad then assembled at the front of the bunch, winding up the pace to nullify any potential last-ditch attacks. Mark Renshaw delivered Cavendish into the final metres, with Boasson Hagen on his wheel.
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