Tour de France 2020 Favourites stage 17: Two monster climbs for mountain goats
The 17th stage of the Tour de France is flat. If you look past two massive climbs. The riders tackle the Col de la Madeleine and Col de la Loze in the last 65 kilometres. Which is, combined, almost 40 kilometres of uphill torture.
The riders set off from Grenoble to pedal through the valley of the Isère en then the Arc River to Notre-Dame-du-Cruet. That’s where the Col de la Madeleine kicks in hard with 4 kilometres at 10%. Thereafter the inclination levels out a bit, but it never becomes easy. Far from it. The Madeleine is 17.1 kilometres long and the average gradient sits at 8.4%.
The riders descend back to the valley of the Isère to tackle the Col de la Loze in Brides-les-Bains. One could argue that the Loze is the mirror image of the Madeleine. The average gradient mostly hovers around 7 and 8%, but the last 4.5 kilometres go up at 10%.
With these giant ascents in the last part of the race a GC battle for the stage win would be on the cards. But is Jumbo-Visma willing to control the race to that extent? Could very well be that they are okay with a successful breakaway.
A bold scenario would be for Tom Dumoulin to attack and put pressure on Primoz Roglic’ rivals.
Favourites 17th stage 2020 Tour de France
*** Daniel Felipe Martínez, Miguel Ángel López
** Primoz Roglic, Tadej Pogacar, Adam Yates, Mikel Landa
* Richie Porte, Enric Mas, Rigoberto Uran, Tom Dumoulin
Take a look at the route of the 17th stage on the Tour de France.
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