Thursday’s Stage 18 route takes the riders on a 180km adventure from Gap to Barcelonnette and it will be far from easy, especially with the pace the peloton is likely to start at, even with tougher tests ahead on Friday and Saturday.
With two high mountain stages and Sunday’s final ITT to come, in which the GC favourites will be going full gas for the win, this is perhaps the last realistic opportunity for the rest of the peloton to get a victory at this year’s Tour.
The battle for the breakaway is therefore likely to be an almighty one and the race could explode before or on the first categorised climb at km 28, the Col du Festre (Cat. 3, 3.9 km at 6.3 %). It’s the first of five category 3 climbs on the stage and much like yesterday’s Stage 17 parcours, this is a medium mountain stage, opening up the potential for the win to more than just the Tour’s elite level climbers.
A strong puncheur might be able to go clear on the Côte de Saint-Apollinaire (km 121, Cat. 3, 7 km at 5.5%) and they have further opportunity to do so on the Côte des Demoiselles Coiffées (km 139, Cat. 3, 3.6 km at 5.4%).
It could be hard going for the heavier riders in the peloton and even the final sector - although not classified as a categorised climb - includes 25km of rising false flat terrain into Barcelonnette.
Amongst the highly tipped contenders for the Stage 18 victory are the likes of Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike), Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Jasper Stuyven (Lidl-Trek), Oier Lazkano (Movistar), Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) and Magnus Cort (Uno-X Mobility).
