Bourg-en-bresse > Champagnole
166.5km Friday, 18 September Start 12:45 Finish 16:37
While the GC riders concentrate on saving their resources for tomorrow’s time trial, today’s tactics will depend on how many sprinters are still in the race.
■ Terrain
Today the Tour heads north from Bourg-enbresse to finish at Champagnole, just to the north of the Jura massif.
There are no significant difficulties, route director Thierry Gouvenou clearly deciding that there has been enough hard climbing.
■ Gameplan
Breakaways have a tendency of going the full distance on stages like this in the last few days of the Tour, when so many riders are running close to empty, but this one doesn’t look long or hard enough to give the day’s escapees a decent chance of savouring an unexpected success. No doubt a handful of hopefuls will attempt to defy the odds, but the sprinters will have their team-mates working hard to ensure that the finale plays out as expected, with a bunch sprint finish that will give its winner a huge confidence boost before the Champs Elysées sprint finale on Sunday.
■ Players
Caleb Ewan was the stand-out sprinter in the final week of last year’s Tour, winning at the start of it in Nîmes and going on to claim victory in the highly prestigious stage into Paris, which is often described as an unofficial World Championship for sprinters. Backed by a Lotto-soudal team that will be fully committed to putting the Australian pocket rocket in the right position to shoot for victory, Ewan will be aiming for a repeat of that memorable achievement.