Paris (AFP)
From the novelty to the menu of the next Tour de France: the Loze pass, an unparalleled alpine summit above Méribel, and a time trial at the Planche des Belles Filles will be decisive on the route of the 2020 edition unveiled Tuesday in Paris.
Between Nice, June 27, and the Champs-Elysees, July 19, the layout, muscular, nervous, dynamic, is substantially as mountainous as that of last summer. With fewer passages at very high altitude but more mountainous medium since, besides the Pyrenees and the Alps, the other three massifs of the Hexagon (Massif Central, Jura, Vosges) are in the spotlight.
The "roof" of the Tour? This will be the Loze pass, at 2304 meters. "The prototype of the 21st century pass," says the director of the Great Circle Christian Prudhomme, who was excited about this new route, in fact a 7-kilometer single bike track, recently tarmacked over the station Savoyard of Meribel.
"It's a succession of ruptures of slope, all more brutal than the others", explains the director of the Tour, enthusiastic after the inaugural passage of the Tour de l'Avenir last summer. For pure climbers, it's all profit.
But the riders / climbers, who have often confiscated the rankings in recent years (four wins for Froome, one for Thomas), have an opportunity then to regain ground. On the eve of the traditional arrival in Paris, they have a 36-kilometer time trial, the only "chrono" of the 21 stages. Still ends with the rough rise of The Plank of Beautiful Girls.
- The shock of the Loze Pass -
To reach the resort of Vosges in the process of becoming a classic Tour (5th visit since 2012), the road goes through Melisey, the village of Thibaut Pinot. Like some other protagonists (Froome, Bernal, Kruijswijk, Bardet, Barguil, etc.), the French climber discovered the surprises and novelties of the course concocted by Christian Prudhomme and the race director Thierry Gouvenou.
Like the many spectators gathered at the Palais des Congrès, he saw on the giant screen the photo of Jacques Chirac, since the Tour had decided well before the death on September 26 of the former president to stop in his village of Sarran ( Corrèze), on the eve of climbing to Puy Mary, emblematic site of Auvergne. Then the profile of the Grand Colombier, the mountain-totem Jura where will be judged for the first time a stage finish at the entrance of the last week.
Before the shock of the Col de la Loze, probably the event of the next Tour, advanced one week compared to previous editions because of the online race of the Tokyo Olympics, scheduled for Saturday, July 25, 2020.
"The course is fully drawn in the Hexagon," said Christian Prudhomme, between two editions starting from Brussels (2019) and Copenhagen (2021). "There will be 29 passes, one less than originally planned for the 2019 Tour before the neutralization of the Tignes stage".
The director of the Tour has identified four new climbs, including Hourcère in the second stage and the Pyrenees Loze which, in the opinion of Christian Prudhomme, has everything to become a long-term classic. "The Tour continues to renew itself," he said at the end of his presentation. "Next year, the longest leg will be 218 kilometers - never will the longest leg have been so short!"
© 2019 AFP