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At last, so long after, the tables have turned. At least a priori. For almost a decade, Sky / Ineos have been showing off their muscle at the start of the Tour, of being an invincible squad at the service of a leader for the greater glory of Great Britain. Their seven victories (four for Froome, one for Wiggins, Thomas and Bernal) in the last eight editions frightened the rest of the peloton, as they started to let them dominate the race.

Now, instead, Ineos have been forced to change their pace, to leave out Geraint Thomas and Chris Froome after their poor performance in the preparation races, to add Richard Carapaz to the equation and to put all their faith in the final victory in the Colombian Egan Bernal. Stop being the great British pride to continue being a winner, results ahead of identity. The hunter fears being hunted because for the first time he has a rival at his height, a Jumbo-Visma who has designed a dream team, despite the last-minute loss of Steven Kruijswijk, third last year, due to injury.

Tom Dumoulin and Primoz Roglic will have the support of George Bennett, Sepp Kuss, Robert Gesink, Wout Van Aert ... and with the unknown of which of the two will play the leading role. The Slovenian has been the most solvent in the preparation races, but he tends to go from more to less and arrived physically touched after his fall at the Dauphiné. In fact, during the week it fueled the possibility that he would not even take the exit. He will finally do it this Saturday, but it will be necessary to see in what conditions. The Dutchman, for his part, has not been so brilliant in recent weeks, but he usually increases his performance in the third week, which this year is presumed more decisive than ever. Bernal will have to face all this, who will have Carapaz as his lieutenant, with Pavel Sivakov as a third option and with gregarious as solvent as Jonathan Castroviejo, Dylan Van Baarle, Andrey Amador and Michal Kwiatkowski.

You cannot guess a winner who does not come out of one of those two squads. The main aspiring to surprise may be Thibaut Pinot (Groupama) , historically caught in bad luck; Emanuel Buchmann (Bora), fourth last year; and perhaps the young Tadej Pogacar (UAE), brilliant in the last Vuelta. Colombians Miguel Ángel López (Astana), Nairo Quintana (Arkéa), Rigoberto Urán and Daniel Felipe Martínez (Education First) make up a second line of contenders for the podium together with Romain Bardet (Ag2r), Adam Yates (Mitchelton) and even Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck).

Spanish options

As for the Spaniards, Mikel Landa (Bahrain) finally appears in the Tour with a team at his entire disposal, while Enric Mas will attend for the first time as a reference, in a Movistar (again the only national team in the game) transition period in which he is accompanied by Alejandro Valverde and, finally, also by Marc Soler. "I would settle for making a top 10," Enric Mas said yesterday. Brothers Ion and Gorka Izagirre, Fraile, Luis León Sánchez (Astana), Bilbao (Bahrain), Nieve (Mitchelton), De la Cruz (UAE) and Jesús Herrada (Cofidis) will have to work for their leaders, although they could seek some victory partial. They complete the list of 17 Spanish cyclists, four more than last year, Erviti, Verona, Rojas (Movistar), Valls (Bahrain) and the aforementioned Castroviejo.

Without flat time trials, the other big names on this Tour will be the sprinters, with a payroll less cache than usual. The main contenders include Caleb Ewan (Lotto), Sam Bennett (Deceuninck), Peter Sagan (Bora), Elia Viviani (Cofidis), Giacomo Nizzolo (NTT) and, why not, the versatile Wout Van Aert (Jumbo) . Démare, Ackermann, Gaviria and Groenewegen, already ruled out before what happened with Jakobsen in Poland, are the great absences.

Unlike the classic routes, this year the Tour proposes a route full of traps during the first week , in which those favorites that arrive in the right way can have a hard time. The Pyrenees will do the first screening at the beginning of the second week, but it will be the Jura Massif and, above all, the Alps that will define the race. The most striking thing about the route is that there will only be one 36-kilometer time trial on the penultimate day and that consists of 30 of the false ascending plain and the six (8.5% on average) of the ascent to La Planche des Belles Filles, the colossus of the Vosges.

Two first-class ports (Colmiane and Turini) are already waiting for Sunday , but both are very far from the finish line, in the first half of the stage. The arrival on Thursday at Mont Aigoual will be the aperitif of the two Pyrenean days, scheduled for Saturday and Sunday of next week. Two short stages, of about 150 kilometers, and without ending the stop. The sprinters will regain control until Friday in the Massif Central and especially on Sunday in the Jura, with Le Grand Colombier as the culmination. Tuesday, Wednesday (especially) and Thursday of the last week it will be the turn of the Alps before the resolution in that hybrid between time trial and time trial. As always, the last stage will be dedicated to sprinters and a tribute to the champion on the Champs Elysees in Paris.

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