TOUR DE FRANCE: WHO’S GOING TO WIN?
The 2019 Tour looks like it has the hardest route for years, with complicated terrain and a series of huge mountains. Procycling looks at the likely shape of the race
With seven climbs over 2,000m, this year’s route looks set to play out in the mountains
The view from the Col d’Iseran is one of the most sublime and austere in the Alps. The pass nestles in the saddle between the Pointe des Lessières peak to the west, just above 3,000m altitude, and the slightly higher but more distant Signal de l’Iseran on the other side. The Italian border and Valle d’Aosta beyond are just a few kilometres further east. The pinnacles and cirques of the Massif de la Vanoise stretch into the distance – the col is well above the treeline, so there’s nothing to really soften the edges of the scree and rock except some anaemic-looking grass in the acid soil and patches of snow that last, most years, all the way through summer.
It’s bleak, but the beauty of views like this are in the eye of the beholder – some will gaze down from the top of the Col de
l’Iseran and like what they see. Others, probably less so.
From this lofty outlook, 2,770 metres high and which comes two thirds of the way through stage 19 of the 2019 Tour de France, the riders will be able to see almost all the way to Paris, if not literally, then figuratively. There are still a few obstacles to come: a left turn and climb up to Tignes on the same day as the Iseran is tackled; the Cormet de Roselend and the long, long grind up to Val Thorens the next day. But while there is still significant altitude gain to come, there’s a net downhill to the finish of the race. Psychologically, that counts for a lot, especially given what has come before.
If the 2019 Tour has a theme, it is one of high altitude. The race will breach 2,000 metres no fewer than seven times in total, compared to four times last year. Three of the summit finishes - the Col du Tourmalet, Tignes and Val Thorens – are two kilometres or more above sea level. The Iseran is the fifth of the seven giants of the 2019 Tour, and the highest of them all. It is among these peaks that the Tour will be won and lost.
You can’t miss mountains that big. They’ll loom large in the imaginations of race fans and in the minds of the riders and their teams. But mountains also cast long shadows and it’s as well to take note of what they hide.
Of course, the high mountains will define the shape of the 2019 Tour’s general classification, and this is a backloaded race. There are more 2,000m mountains than for many years at the Tour, and the first one doesn’t come until stage 14, with six of the seven concentrated into three days in the Alps between stages 18 and 20. However, the primary tactic of every Tour winner since 2012 has been to gain time early and defend the lead – Wiggins in 2012, Froome in 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2017, Nibali in 2014 and Thomas in 2018. The challenge that ASO has laid down in designing the 2019 Tour is to render this more difficult, with gruelling territory in the second half of the race, combined with an opening phase that is grippy and
ASO have tried many ways of prising the fingers of Team Ineos, formerly Team Sky, away from the Coupe Omnisports, the midnight-blue porcelain trophy awarded to the winner of the Tour de France each year on the Champs-Élysées. They’ve trimmed the time trials down, borrowed cobbled sectors from the Tour’s sister race, Paris-Roubaix, reduced the number of summit finishes, increased the number of summit finishes, dabbled with more downhill finishes, found steeper climbs, gone deep into the middle mountains, cut the length of some mountain stages down to well under 100km and even had a hand from the UCI, in having team sizes cut from nine riders to eight. And that’s before we take into account the underwhelming grid start in Bagnères-de-Luchon last year. None of these have worked – the only interruption to seven years of dominance (and counting) has been the crash which eventually took Chris Froome out of the race in 2014, and you can’t plan for things like that.
You can understand if ASO feel frustration at how straightforward the British team have made winning the Tour look. Of course, the point of the race is that the best man wins, but even when certain riders or teams dominated the Tour in the past, there was less of a sense that the race was won before it even
There are more 2,000 metre mountains than for many years at the Tour, and the first one doesn’t come until stage 14
started. The impression is that Hinault, Indurain, even Merckx still had to go out and win the race. Ineos, however, have hacked the Tour. They have had the strongest rider and the strongest team, bought and paid for by sponsors with the deepest pockets in cycling. And here’s the unforgivable bit in the eyes of purists – they have ridden negatively and defensively, using strength in numbers and cold science to freeze the ambitions of their rivals. It used to be that riders had to go out and win the Tour, but the sense now is that Ineos have already won it, and their rivals, and to an extent ASO, must reverse engineer their defeat.
As we went to press, the bookies’ top five favourites included three Ineos riders: Chris Froome, Geraint Thomas and Egan Bernal. The only interlopers were Tom Dumoulin, last year’s Tour runner-up, and Primož Roglicč, who is unlikely to contest the GC after having targeted the Giro d’Italia and has stated that stage wins and riding in support of Jumbo-Visma team leader Steven Kruijswijk is the extent of his ambition in July. In other words, it currently look like Ineos have three extremely realistic prospects for the yellow jersey, while a tiny handful of teams have one, and most have none.
Ineos’s grip is tightening, not loosening. They’ve finished first and second before, in 2012, when Wiggins beat Froome, not without some drama over team leadership and Froome being held back in the mountain stages (justifiably so, in terms of tactics; less so in terms of keeping a prize asset happy). In 2016, they only had winner Froome
The sense now is that Ineos have already won the Tour and their rivals, and ASO, must reverse engineer their defeat
in the top 10, but put three more riders into the top 20. In 2017, their best three positions were first, fourth and 14th; last year they came first, third and 15th. But if Bernal rides to his potential, they can envisage three in the top 10, or even top five. La Vie Claire hold the modern record for stacking the top 10 – first, second, fourth and seventh in 1986. Ineos might not match that, but they’re capable of getting close.
This, more than any number of 2,000m climbs, is the obstacle that stands between the other contenders and the yellow jersey. There could be eight 2,000m climbs or six, but Ineos would still be the bigger challenge. However, there is one glimmer of hope. In their six Tour wins, they’ve had the strongest rider and the strongest team. What if they no longer have the strongest rider? Sometimes, as with the grid start in Luchon, the line dividing innovation from gimmick has been invisible. The shorter, more intense mountain stages have had their moments, and the cobbled stages have been popular with fans, if not with riders, and 2014 apart, have not split the race as it was hoped. But the innovation with 2019 is that, really, there is no innovation. The repeated forays into the cycling death zone of 2,000m-plus climbs is a motif, but while this is a more mountainous race than some recent Tours, it’s nothing compared to the pre-television epics of yesteryear.
France gives the Tour its pulse and its rhythm, and the shape of the country and its topography dictates the unfolding of the race. By starting in Belgium and tracing a long diagonal line down to the Pyrenees, then back to the Alps, the 2019 Tour naturally splits into four phases: a flat opening, then a very hilly middle, taking in tough stages in the
Vosges, then the Massif Central. The Pyrenees are less relentless than in previous years, split up by a time trial and sandwiched by a couple of sprint stages. The Alps are unspeakable.
Tom Boonen once said of the Tour of Flanders that it’s a race that forces the riders to race – the hills and pinch points tempt the favourites into riding hard and gambling. The 2019 Tour route has a few similar temptations – the stages to La Planche des Belles Filles in the Vosges and Saint-Étienne in the Massif Central are very tough indeed, with multiple climbs. And each of these stages doesn’t come alone. Planche des Belles Filles is preceded by a warm-up day to Colmar in the Vosges, while the Saint-Étienne stage is followed by another day across the high plateau of the southern Massif Central to Brioude. That’s four middlemountain stages before the first rest day.
The 2012 and 2014 Tours saw decisive blows struck by the eventual winners on the stage to La Planche des Belles Filles, but any rider who wants to do the same this year will be committing their team to a week of hard work defending the yellow jersey across the Massif Central and to the Pyrenees. The Tourmalet, which is the first really key mountain stage of the Tour, comes a full nine days after La Planche des Belles Filles, and the first of the three very hard Alpine stages comes a fortnight afterwards. A lot of wearing down can happen in two weeks.
The question is, how will Ineos deal with the terrain? Also: how will the other teams deal with Ineos, and how will they use the route to their advantage? The evidence of the last decade suggests that Ineos will be quite happy to ride defensively around France for as long as it takes, and that they have the resources to do so. It’s not hard to imagine Ineos being among the top three teams in the team time trial, putting a rider into yellow on La Planche des Belles Filles, and defending all the way to Paris. If that one rider falters, there’ll be at least two more in reserve to take his place.
But it’s also true that in 2018, Tom Dumoulin was arguably stronger in both the Giro and the Tour than Chris Froome, and he wasn’t far off Geraint Thomas in the Tour. Another year of improvement, along with the fact that he had to pull out of the Giro early this year and will now be fresh for the Tour, and Dumoulin may end up being the strongest rider at the Tour. At Sunweb, Dumoulin doesn’t have the team to control the Tour in the same way that Ineos does, but he may be happy for the British team to do the controlling, while he matches their riders through to the time trial on stage 13, where he should be the favourite. There’s also the possibility that the 2019 Tour falls into a sweet spot between the decline of Froome and Thomas, both entering their mid-30s, and the ascendance of Bernal, which would open the race up not only to Dumoulin, but to a few other riders hitting their peaks, like Romain Bardet or a rejuvenated Nairo Quintana. If that happens, Ineos will have to try to win tactically, rather than by force of will, but as Froome demonstrated at the 2018 Giro, they have the capacity to do so.
When the Alps were being mapped in the 1800s, cartographers were mystified by accounts of a 4,000m-high peak in the Vanoise known as Mont Iseran. It had appeared on earlier maps, and had been mentioned by surveyors working for the King of Sardinia and travellers to the region. British climbers who visited in the 1860s could find no sign of it, however, and French military surveyors finally confirmed that no such mountain existed. Mont Iseran turned out to be a myth. By the time the 2019 Tour gets to the Col d’Iseran, where Mont Iseran was purported to be, we’ll know if all the ambitions and plans to beat Ineos are equally illusory.
The last decade suggests that Ineos will be quite happy to ride defensively around France for as long as it takes