“We’ll go and get the Galibier on the fourth day, it isn’t widespread. However we needed to cross the Alps to come back again. It is this sort of stage that forces the riders to be prepared from the beginning of the Tour de France since you do not climb to 2,600 meters like that.“, underlines the technical director of the occasion, Thierry Gouvenou, to the AFP.
The stage, very quick (139 km), begins from Pinerolo, west of Turin, to reach at Valloire the place Nairo Quintana had received in 2019. And the small gears will probably be out, first with the lengthy climb to the Sestriere station, the place Fausto Coppi had raised his arms in 1952, the Montgenèvre cross (1,860 m) and eventually the Lautaret and the Galibier, taken from its southern slope, the best.
“It isn’t the toughest half. It is fairly rolling, there are not any steep gradients. Total, the difficulties of the day will not be insurmountable. Nevertheless it’s nonetheless quite a lot of elevation achieve in the long run (3,600 m) and it stays a key second of the Tour de France, particularly with the considerably disrupted preparation of some“, factors out Gouvenou.
