The Planche des Belles Filles (France) (AFP)

Tourmalet, Galibier, Alpe d'Huez ... Plate? Behind its legendary passes, the Tour de France holds its Vosges reference with the Planche des Belles Daughters. The peloton borrows it only for the fourth time Thursday, but its extreme stiffness, and its always early programming, raise it already to the rank of classic.

It has been a long time since the Great Loop was played only in the Alps or the Pyrenees. With new developments, the organizers dig their heads every year to disrupt the established order, to propose the show well before attacking the big passes.

Cobblestones here, the Massif Central by then ... but also, since 2012, a small station in the Haute-Saone north of Belfort and the name rather poetic, "slap in the ear" according to race director Thierry Gouvenou: the Planche des Belles Daughters.

During each of the three passages of the peloton at the top of this Vosges climb (2012, 2014, 2017), there was a fight. On these slopes, Chris Froome began to write his legend on the Tour, earning his first stage in 2012. Vincenzo Nibali, in 2014, and Fabio Aru, three years later, put their name on his list. That big names.

Each time, the man who donned the leader's tunic at his top was finally crowned on the Champs-Elysees two weeks later - Bradley Wiggins in 2012, Nibali in 2014, Froome in 2017.

"We fell on it like that, in our search for difficulty outside the big mountains, and it immediately became unavoidable, it was a bit of a heartbeat," recalls Gouvenou.

- "A real mountain stage" -

Julian Alaphilippe would like to protect his yellow jersey, but the French knows that in three passages in the short history of the Board, never the leader has kept his tunic. He did not hide it: "It's too hard for me," he said, resigned in appearance.

The Planche of the Beautiful Girls, it is indeed somehow the Alpe d'Huez in shorter and lower. Seven kilometers to 8.7% average, with many very steep passages, 13% from the start, to 20% in the penultimate kilometer, and, innovation in 2019, up to 24% in the last hectometres, on a new sector added for this edition. History to go even further in the effort.

"It's a very, very steep wall, with a beautiful view above," explains the local stage, Thibaut Pinot. "It's a nice finish in people's minds," Gouvenou said, "when the winner gets out of the ramp that leads to the line, the public, from the finish line, will first see a helmet, then glasses, then a face, it will be beautiful. "

All the more beautiful with six climbs listed in the mountain ranking before the final effort to the Board, two of which are classified in the first category, the profile promises the show and the first gaps. "This year, we went up a notch in terms of difficulty," says Gouvenou. "We make all the big passes Vosges so it will be a real mountain stage," continues Pinot, whose ambitions are high.

Will the differences be definitive? "I'm not worried," says Thierry Gouvenou. "The yellow jersey in the sixth stage, it's too early, too hard, I can not see the team that will take it try to keep it to Paris". Not sure that Ineos and his duo Geraint Thomas-Egan Bernal planned this in the same way.

? 2019 AFP