Can we talk about a disappointing course for the 2021 Tour?

Will Pogaçar be able to do that again in 2021?

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• We now know the route of the Tour de France 2021.

• With only three arrivals at the top, this route will be “easier” than the previous one.

  Even disappointing?

  We ask the question.

"It's a different course than in recent years, less for climbers, more for complete runners especially with two big lap times".

We know our Thibaut Pinot inside out, and when the leader of Groupama-FDJ is so lapidary on a course, it means that he doesn't have much to say about it.

This is perhaps due to its presentation, sent on a late Sunday evening when we are pleased to attend the great rally at Porte Maillot every year, but like our Tibo d'amore, we were moderately thrilled by the layout by Christian Prudhomme.

Right, really?

A route a little forced by the circumstances

First of all, let us recognize in the organizer an extraordinary ability to adapt.

After moving the 2020 edition to September with some success given the circumstances, ASO had to work until the last days to find a plan B in Denmark, which postponed its Grand departure for a year due to the holding of certain Euro 2021 matches in Copenhagen on the same dates.

If Brittany, land of the greatest champions of French cycling, never falters in the Tour (apart from Rennes), the rest had to be modified accordingly.

“It may seem silly, but in the middle of the summer it was necessary to change almost a week after the change of dates for Euro football and the Olympics.

We found ourselves at the end of July without a big start for 2021 and I would like to sincerely thank the Brittany Regional Council which gave its agreement to bring forward its big start by one year ”, summarizes Christian Prudhomme, the director of the event .

Clearly, this gives almost a week of observation before attacking the mountain, a few obligatory passages with the air of deja vu on the way (Mûr de Bretagne, good), and an incredibly long stage between Vierzon and Le Creusot to get to 'in the Alps.

248 terminals, the longest mileage since 2000.

The # TDF2021 will be:

🚩 3,383 km

⛰ 27 2nd, 1st or

Non-

Category

passes ⛰ 6 mountain stages

⏱ 2 individual

CLMs The # TDF2021 will consist of:

🚩 3,383 km

⛰ 27 2nd, 1st or HC climbs

⛰ 6 Mountain stages

⏱ 2 ITT pic.twitter.com/qa9KfKaGka

- Tour de France ™ (@LeTour) November 1, 2020

Too many time trials?

Two individual time trials on the Tour?

This is a first since 2017, which is not prehistoric either.

But 58 terminals in total, on an extremely flat course each time, it's unheard of since 2013 and it reminds us a little too much of the 90s and King Miguel who crushed everyone on the clock before managing in Mountain.

"It's a slightly more traditional course, a little more classic, which reminds me of the Tour I watched in my childhood, with two big lap times which will be important deadlines for the general classification", how soberly Romain Bardet, that one can imagine less delighted by the prospect of roller-climbers like Roglic or Dumoulin, who will however have the disadvantage of getting out of hand in the same team.

Here too, the organizer did what he could.

“We didn't want to have more than two consecutive sprints, but without this time, that would have been the case between Brittany and Châteauroux”.

Let us add that we all remember the extraordinary ascent of Pogaçar last September to the top of the Planche des Belles Filles.

It was the individual effort that gave us the best turnaround of the decade in the race.

Only three arrivals at the top

On this point too, we will have to get rid of our bad habits.

No decisive steps for the general classification before the second week, and the Alps ratiboisées for the benefit of the Pyrenees, yet considered outdated in recent years.

There will be only three arrivals at altitude (Tignes, Saint-Lary-Soulan, Luz-Ardiden), which gives credence to the thesis of a lighter menu, after two editions which bordered on the overbidding in the matter.

Prudhomme provides after-sales service:

“It turns out that the Alps are the first mountain range.

The route depends a lot on the place of the big departure.

In 2020, we had the opportunity to go straight to the mountains.

It's the first week that makes the difference.

But it is not huge, we have 27 passes instead of 29 and we will climb higher even if the port of Envalira is not the roughest of the passes.

In the last mountain stage, anything can happen with the Tourmalet and Luz-Ardiden without a valley in between.

The day before, the rise of Portet, it is not nothing.

There is plenty to do ".

As for the arrivals at the top in itself, the Tour had a debt to the Tignes resort, deprived of its arrival in 2019 on the famous days of the abandonment of Pinot, and the director of the route (Gouvenou) has observed as we did that the Jumbo-Visma train had often anesthetized the arrivals at the top of the passes this year, with an attack in a Roglic chair 500 meters from the summit.

So we add ten descent terminals, more difficult to control by the big armadas, hoping that that changes something.

Tadej Pogacar, outgoing winner, summarizes the course for the Team: “Personally, I would have preferred more finishes at the top.

There, there will only be three but it remains a very interesting course [...] As this year, we will again finish the Tour with a time trial, for the 20th stage, it will be much flatter and less technical, but it's possible that everything is still playing out there.

"

No major innovations

Here we finish a little but still.

The 2021 Tour does not really offer a great find, even if it is difficult to find every year such an impressive creature as the Col de la Loze, which we will surely see again very quickly in summer (and without masks at the edge of the road).

Prudhomme tried to sell us the Signal d'Huchon and the roughness of its slopes at more than 15% on the Creusot route, but we are not talking about a pass itself, or even a mountain stage. .

There is, it is true, this story of Ventoux to be climbed twice in the same day, which risks stinging the legs as long as it blows like in the great days from Chalet-Reynard (July 7 ).

Can this double ration lead to a milestone?

The precedent of Alpe d'Huez in 2012 invites us to be careful, especially since the finish will not be judged at the top of Mont Chauve, but at the bottom of the descent leading to Malaucène.

The scapegoat is found if you really bother.

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• Egan Bernal

• Thibaut Pinot

• Romain bardet

• Sport

• Tour de France