Bruxelles Palais Royal Brussel Atomium
A mid- distance team time trial around the Belgian capital will shake up the general classification
The Tour de France wears its history consciously. The Brussels grand départ may be overtly a 50th anniversary bash to celebrate the first Tour win of its most famous son, Eddy Merckx, in 1969. (And, more prosaically, the result of a multi-million euro transaction between the host city and Tour owners ASO.) But the route of stage 2 also pays homage to the past of both the Tour and the city. Brussels has hosted the grand départ once previously, in 1958. That was also the year that the World’s Fair took place in Brussels, an event which was marked by the construction of the Atomium, a 102m-high architectural representation of the unit cell of an iron crystal which will overlook the finish line of this second stage of the 2019 race.
In fact this stage, a 27km team time trial, links the old and the modern. It starts at the Palais Royal, the old seat of the Belgian royal family, and finishes at the Atomium – a journey through time which may remind the riders of the Tour what is at stake today.
While the Tour celebrates its various anniversaries, recent history can also teach us a lot about what is likely to happen in the team time trial, which is to say: not much. Back
in the days of 60km-plus TTTs in the 1990s and 2000s, large time gaps were routine in these stages. However, the last four Tour TTTs have demonstrated little, save for the fact that the teams at the top are very closely matched.
In 2011, seven teams finished within 12 seconds of the fastest time. In 2013, seven teams were within 20 seconds of each other at the top of the leaderboard. 2015 was much more decisive – three teams were all within just four seconds of each other, but there were much larger gaps between all the teams behind them. And last year, the five best teams were all within 11 seconds of each other.
However, psychological blows will still be struck on this early stage, as the teams power their way around Brussels. History, after all, is written by the victors.