Tour de France 2018: Be set for some ‘special challenges’
LONDON: Tom Dumoulin should be Chris Froome’s main rival as the Briton targets a record-equalling fifth title in the 2018 Tour de France, the route for which was unveiled yesterday.
Dutchman Dumoulin won the Giro d’Italia this year before Froome claimed a fourth Tour triumph, both relying mainly on their time-trialling qualities.
Next year’s Tour will feature a 35km team time trial in Cholet and could be decided in a hilly 31km individual effort against the clock on the penultimate day in the Basque country.
“A contest between Chris Froome and Tom Dumoulin, two riders with similar qualities, wouldn’t displease me,” said Tour director Christian Prudhomme. “It would force one of the two to try something different in order to surprise the other.
“We’re looking at a new generation that wants to entertain. I think that if Christopher Froome is up against Tom Dumoulin they will want to do that. They will be more or less equal in the time trials. That’s something very exciting.”
There will be many challenges on the course, however, with 21.7 kilometres on cobbles on the ninth stage to Roubaix, where the Queen of the Classics, also known as the “Hell of the North” finishes each year.
That will be followed by a rest day before the riders tackle three punishing stages in the Alps with a summit finish at top of the iconic Alpe d’Huez.
“That’s a special challenge for the riders as they will need to switch from flat-stage mode to mountain-stage mode,” Tour competitions director Thierry Gouvenou told Reuters.
The course is full of surprises, with a 1.9-km gravel path at the top of the Plateau des Glieres in the first Alpine stage, which will take the peloton from Annecy to Le Grand Bornand.
One of the trickiest stages might be the 17th from Bagneres de Luchon to SaintLary Soulan as it is only 65 kilometres long, making it very hard to control for the favourites.
It will be the Tour’s shortest stage since 1971.
The race is likely to be decided in the 20th stage, a 31-km hilly individual time trial.
Dumoulin is the reigning time trial world champion, both individually and with his Sunweb team, but Team Sky’s Froome has experience on his side.
Prudhomme has tried to spice up the route with new climbs to make the race more exciting.
In 2012, he introduced the Planche des Belles Filles, where four-times champion Chris Froome claimed his maiden Tour stage victory, adding the brutal col des Chevrieres two years later.
For 2018, Prudhomme and Tour competitions director Thierry Gouvenou have come up with another novelty - the col des Glieres, which will feature on the first mountain stage in the Alps.
The col des Glieres is a six-kilometre climb at an average gradient of 11 percent on narrow roads ending on a plateau, which the peloton will go through on a gravel path.
“It will be interesting from a sporting point of view, but also from a historical point of view,” Prudhomme said.
The plateau des Glieres features the national monument of the Resistance as the limestone plateau was used by Maquis group of resistance fighters during World War Two.
The site had been in Prudhomme’s mind for a few years but it was only included very recently in the 2018 Tour, leaving little time for organisers Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO) to set up the route.
“We have a lot of ideas but they don’t necessarily come to fruition right away,” Prudhomme explained.
The first reconnaissance trips are usually made in June the year before the Tour but organisers often have less than a couple of months to build a 3 500-km parcours.
“Sometimes we have to work on an idea for three years,” said Prudhomme.
Gouvenou, however, reminded that ASO is often pressed by time.
“We take the previous Tour into account. It’s important not to rush things off and see how the previous edition panned out,” he told Reuters.
“Then we can change the number of climbs and the amount of time trial kilometres.”
For the 2017 Tour, for instance, Gouvenu made lastminute changes.
“We had wanted a 2016 Tour that was very mountainous but we realised it was a bit too much so we cut down on the number of ascents for the 2017 race. That’s only something you can do if you really start working on it in August.” – Reuters