MADRID, 18 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The 109th edition of the Tour de France will finally be decided this third and last week of competition, marked by the harshness that will be in the Pyrenees, decisive ‘judges’ of the podium in Paris next Sunday along with a long and complicated time trial in the penultimate stage .
After resting for the third time in the ‘Grande Boucle’, the hopefuls to be on the Champs-Élysées as protagonists will have to face the tough final that the organizers have prepared for them, with a lot of mountains and two consecutive high-altitude finishes.
If this is not definitive, 40 kilometers of fighting against the clock predict an exciting finale, for the time being, between the Danish Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) and the Slovenian Tadej Pogacar (UAE), separated for the time being by just over two minutes.
And there will be no rest from this Tuesday where there will be a day with a mountainous profile between Carcassone and Foix, with four ascents, the last two in the first category (Port de Lers and Mur de Péguère) and with a long descent towards the finish line.
However, it will be the next two days where more fighting is expected. In the seventeenth stage, the peloton will have to climb the Col d’Aspin, the Hourquette d’Ancizan and the Col de Val Louron-Azet before finishing at the top of the Peyragudes ski resort, with 8 kilometers at 7.8 percent and with the most complicated in the final stretch.
24 hours later, and starting from Lourdes, another day designed for a battle for the new yellow jersey made by Santini. A ‘Tour’ port such as the Col d’Aubisque (16.4 kilometers at 7.1 percent) and the Col de Spandelles will warm up your legs for the climb to another Pyrenean colossus such as Hautacam, which returns with its 13.6 kilometers to 7.8 percent.
Finally, the organizers decided to give a break with a penultimate flat stage so that the sprinters and the ‘chasers’ of victories have a chance, and so that the candidates recover energy for the 40-kilometer time trial on Saturday between Lacapelle Marival and the beautiful Rocamadour , a town embedded in a wall and with two small climbs in the final five kilometres; the Cote de Mags (1.6 kilometers at 4.7 percent) and the Cote de l’Hospitalet (1.5 kilometers at 7 percent). For Sunday the triumphal ‘ride’ to Paris.