After two stages which culminated in expected bunch sprints it’s an altogether different challenge for the riders and teams to manage on Stage 7, with a 25.3km ITT from Nuits-Saint-Georges to Gevrey-Chambertin.
This is great wine territory, but before venturing into the heart of the Côte-d'Or vineyards, the time trial specialists will spend almost two-thirds of the ITT route on forest roads. It’s a mainly flat parcours but the climb of the Côte de Curtil-Vergy (1.6km at 6.1%) will be an agonising test of the riders’ pain tolerance and stamina. It's also a fairly short time trial route which is quite technical, as the riders will negotiate their way through some small villages on the way to the finish.
Time trial World champion Remco Evenepoel (Soudal–Quick-Step) will fancy his chances, whilst current GC leader Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) will be doing everything he can to hold on to the Yellow Jersey. Pogacar won one of the time trails at the Giro d’Italia in May on his way to the overall win.
At last year’s Tour Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) produced one of the best performances of his career and one of the stand-out time trials in the history of the race, beating his main rival by 1’38” over a route which was just 22.4km in length. Vingegaard was a huge 2’51” ahead of the third best rider on the Stage 16 ITT last year and will be looking to put big pressure on his rivals again this time out.
Olympic time trial champion Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates) are both strong time triallists and should not be overlooked. In addition to the GC favourites, the likes of Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike), Stefan Bissegger (EF Education-EasyPost), Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ) and Bruno Armirail (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team) all pose a threat.
On paper, there should not be huge gaps between the best riders, but once the clock starts ticking, you never know…
