And...the Tour is back in France!
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A Dane in Denmark, Magnus Cort as King of what counts as Mountains in Denmark. 😉
Today's stage is a lumpy little number; 6 categorised climbs (all 4th Cat) and many unclassified undulations as it heads inland from Dunkirk on roads that might be familiar from the Four Days of Dunkerque racing before returning to the coast for a technical run along to Calais.
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Is it hilly enough to disrupt the sprinters or will everyone be in safe mode before the cobbles tomorrow? On paper of course, the slightly tougher finish would be ideal for [b]Wout van Aert[/b] to get one better than the three 2nd places he's managed so far. In his heyday, [b]Peter Sagan[/b] would have been a good call for stages like this too. Otherwise if it doesn't blow up too much on the final hills, it'll likely be another showdown between [b]Fabio Jakobsen[/b] and [b]Dylan Groenewegen[/b] with possible honorary appearance from [b]Caleb Ewan[/b] in the last chance for a bunch sprint this side of the Alps.
Magnus Cort is numerically certain to hang onto his Polka Dot jersey so it's unlikely that today will see much of a shakeup in jerseys or GC which does make it a bit of an unknown quantity in terms of a spectator sport!
Covverage on ITV4 / GCN+ / EuroSport from 12.15 today with live text feed from https://racecenter.letour.fr/en
Interestingly lumpy. The roads around here are pretty narrow, I reckon most of the CG contenders will have a 'mare trying to keep at the front. Remember Brittany last year? Like that.
11km to the line from the last lump, maybe a decent attack on the last climb could manage to stay ahead of the peloton? Probably too far, though, so I'm guessing it'll be a sprint finish.
I'm in Dunkerque most weeks, and it's really buzzing at the moment - these are from a little potter yesterday evening
And then driving to the site this morning, saw what seemed to be the majority of the caravan - this was the first of a long train of trucks with all sorts on the back
Sneaking off for an hour or so to see them roll out along the promenade in a bit 🙂
GCN programme has started already (noon) with the usual chat about what's gone on so far and what might happen today - worth watching as Orla / Robbie / Dan / Adam seem to have a good rapport and excellent insights
ITV4 have yesterday's highlights from 1pm then live coverage from 2pm
And Eurosport coverage has just started too with the roll out. Dunkirk looking lovely in the sunshine!
Wiggins quite impressed with Wout there 😃
Peloton taking it easy and some bloke in polka dots is doing another long day out front... 😉
Froome doesn't look very happy.
Is his stem wonky?
Just back to the office after seeing them roll out. Healthy breeze coming in off the sea, but they should be a good but more sheltered inland, I doubt there would be any echelons forming in the neutral zone along the promenade 😀
Bradley Wiggins totally ignoring everyone as he headed from the busses down to find his motorbike.
I snagged a free banana and a TDF musette 🙂
Maybe MvdP will get bored and have a wee go today.
QS smashed it and shoved their lead out train out the back 😀 WvA seems very animated.
Cort's Cannondale look amazing, paint job really works.
cheers for that text update linky - will be nice to keep an eye on
That gap has been up and down all day - interesting to see how the teams are slowly applying pressure in the peloton at certain times just to make the sprinters work for it and then ease off so the gap at the front goes out again.
Can't see it lasting much longer though. 60km to go, down to 2 mins.
anyone else only getting the GCN output in French no matter if app or browser? Normally I have no issue getting the English language version but not today
edit: solved. It looks like they now have both the breakaway program and a french language program on the list now.
all the gc teams are in and about the front looking very nervy
a little bit of wind there.
Does the GCN feed keep dropping for everyone else or just me?
those flags aren't exactly still, but probably not enough to cause problems
Does the GCN feed keep dropping for everyone else or just me?
Rock solid here so far I'm afraid 🙁
bloody carnage!
KABOOM!
Full on sprint into the bottom of the final climb; Ineos and Jumbo-Visma have blown it to pieces.
how is WvA still taking time out of them. Amazjng
looks just like the Isle of Wight
le french will love this from yellow!
Maybe MvdP will get bored and have a wee go today.
Wrong van but I don't mind cos this is great.
oh i think he's got it. Everyone else will start looking at each other
Arse, i turned it off at 17k out
class
oh dear Jasper !
That was a class ride! Perfectly timed, do-or-die attack and it worked.
Little unfortunate celebrating like that for second
Gonna get some stick at the dinner table later!
He's an animal isn't he! Wow.
Arse, i turned it off at 17k out
That was more or less the exact moment that it all lit up! Worth catching on the highlights if you can.
Superb, I really thought he'd be caught but misjudged how strung out the other teams were. Total display of dominance from Jumbo
it was a fantastic sprint from Jasper, can see why he was pleased ! 😀
if I could sprint like that I'd still be celebrating now!
sprints, TTs, mountain stages, lone attacks is there nothing the lad can't do ?
11km to the line from the last lump, maybe a decent attack on the last climb could manage to stay ahead of the peloton? Probably too far, though, so I’m guessing it’ll be a sprint finish.
Thought this prediction (the first bit anyway) deserved recognition 👏
MVdP conspicuous by absence, hopefully that means he's waiting for the cobbles, I also wonder if WVA will have work to do today and won't be given a free reign?
Article here about how Jumbo-Visma set up the attack.
Will do a thread for today's stage in a bit.
hopefully that means he’s waiting for the cobbles
nothing motivates MVdP more than WvA, though riders always seem to underestimate the effect of riding the Giro have on the legs.