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There have been some hard and horrible days in this year’s Tour de France, like stage nine’s chaos on gravel and the gruelling Col du Tourmalet on stage 14, but this race has saved the hardest and highest roads until the end.
After yesterday’s emotional win for Victor Campenaerts, stage 19 is a brute: three monstrous Alpine climbs, back to back, with a summit finish at the mountain resort of Isola. The middle climb of the trio is the giant Cime de la Bonette (22.9km at 6.9%), the highest paved road in France at 2,802m.
It is quite a place to make a statement, and Tadej Pogacar may choose to do just that. Pogacar doesn’t need to attack, of course. He leads Jonas Vingegaard by three minutes and any sensible person would sit on Vingegaard’s wheel all the way to Nice and lock up victory by not losing touch.
But that is not Pogacar, and nor is it Vingegaard’s nature to simply give up, so expect some fireworks even though this race is all but done. Vingegaard may bravely try something if he’s feeling OK, and Pogacar will almost certainly respond with gusto.
He will see this as an opportunity to add to his tally of 14 stage wins, and the breakaway which will likely assemble early in the day will need a sizeable advantage at the foot of the Cime de la Bonette in order to stave off the advancing yellow jersey.
If it isn’t to be Pogacar’s day then it will require some strong climbing legs in the breakaway – riders like Richard Carapaz and Romain Bardet already have stage wins this year and will eye this type of route, while Britain’s Simon Yates has looked good too. Spain’s Enric Mas and Australia’s Jai Hindley are two more to watch if they make the break.
And spare a thought for the sprinters left in the peloton. There is no battle on the Champs-Elysees this year, nothing left to gain but the pride of finishing a Tour de France. It will be a long day at the back. Davide Ballerini currently carries the lanterne rouge, though Mark Cavendish is only one place and one minute ahead of him.
Stage 19 map and profile
Prediction
Tadej Pogacar may well blow away the field to win wearing yellow, but we’re going to plump for a breakaway winner escaping up the road early and staying away. SimonYates has come close, and perhaps this will be his day.
