After a bit of a lull in the general classification battle over the weekend, the race will ignite properly today on the first mountainous day of this year’s Tour de France.
Saturday and Sunday saw the sprinters take the spotlight, with Jonathan Milan and Tim Merlier winning stages 8 and 9. Despite plenty of nerves and tension in the peloton, there were no shifts in the top 10 of the GC standings, although Tadej Pogacar suffered a blow in the form his talented teammate Joao Almeida abandoning the race.
The first mountain joust of this year’s race falls, fittingly, on Bastille Day, with the necessity of racing on the French national holiday ensuring that the Tour’s first rest day – almost always on the second Monday – has been pushed back to Tuesday. That means there will be some extra-tired legs in the bunch at the start line in Ennezat; the question is, which of the riders will suffer, and who will rise to the top?
There are 4,450m of elevation gain to be surmounted today, the toughest day of the race so far, featuring a whopping eight categorised climbs: seven cat-twos and only one cat-three, all packed into 165km of racing.
The last is a summit finish at le Mont-Dore, Puy de Sancy, a 3.3km climb averaging 8%, a biting finish to a really punchy day in the saddle. Can the French riders seal a memorable Bastille Day victory? They’ll have to get past the GC men first…
Route map and profile
Start time
Stage 10 starts at 1.10pm local time (12.10pm BST) with an expected finish time of 5.25pm local time (4.25pm BST).
Prediction
In years gone by this would have been an ideal breakaway stage, packed full of climbing but not quite difficult enough for the general classification contenders to be tempted… but that’s without reckoning with the marauding Tadej Pogacar.
With it being Bastille Day, the likes of Aurelien Paret-Peintre (brother Valentin is on support duty for Remco Evenepoel, which rules him out) and Valentin Madouas might be set loose in a bid for a rare French victory; the terrain is probably not tough enough for Lenny Martinez, but he might have a dig too. Kevin Vauquelin is the most in-form of the French climbers but is likely too close on GC to be allowed up the road.
Could this be one for French veteran, breakaway stalwart and fan favourite Julian Alaphilippe? Or even his fellow elder statesman Warren Barguil? One can only hope.
Hedging my bets here, but if it comes down to a GC battle, Oscar Onley has a fourth place and a third place to his name already on the punchier stages and is a real climber. It may yet be the young Scot who breaks French hearts – if it isn’t Pogacar himself.
