Lille hosted the Tour de France on dozens of occassions, although it has been awhile since the last ones. In 2014, Marcel Kittel sprinted to victory, while the penultimate visit occurred in 1994, and the finish before that was as far back as 1982.
The 5th stage of the 2022 Tour de France travels to Arenberg. The village is made famous by the Trouée d’Arenberg from Paris-Roubaix, but also hosted two Tour de France finishes. In 2010, Thor Hushovd pocketed a race with seven cobbled sectors, and in 2014 Lars Boom succeeded the strong Norwegian. That last stage was played in rainy conditions and saw defending champion Chris Froome crash out of contention, while Vincenzo Nibali took an advance on his eventual GC win with a solid third place.
The Tour last visited the pavé in 2018, when John Degenkolb won the stage, and in 2015, when Tony Martin took both the day honours and the yellow jersey. Those were both uneventful races.
Although the stage finishes in Arenberg, the famous Trouée d’Arenberg is not included in the race. Nor are other sectors from hell, such as Mons-en-Pévèle and Carrefour de l’Arbre. Obviously, the 5th stage will not be as hard as a regular edition of Paris-Roubaix, but it will be interesting to watch the GC riders navigate the medieval route on their modern bikes. Meanwhile, it’s a pretty sure bet that the likes of Tom Pidcock, Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert will go all out and take care of the spectacle that we are looking for.
The first three riders on the line gain time bonuses of 10, 6 and 4 seconds.
Ride the route yourself? Download GPX stage 5 Tour de France.
Another interesting read: results 5th stage 2022 Tour de France.
Tour de France 2022 stage 5: routes, profiles, more
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