This time, it’s really the high mountains! The Tour will reach its peak this Wednesday, with the passage of Galibier at 2642 m, in the middle of a dantesque stage of 151.7 km through Savoie and the Hautes-Alpes, between Albertville and the Col du Granon Serre-Chevalier. The departure will be given at 12:15 p.m., the arrival at best at 4:40 p.m.
A thrilling alpine triptych
This 11th step could be a turning point. After the hairpin bends of Montvernier (2nd category) as an appetizer, the runners follow a formidable triptych of the Col du Télégraphe, the Col du Galibier and the finish at the summit at the Col du Granon Serre-Chevalier. If a breakaway will undoubtedly start in the first 70 relatively flat kilometers, it is difficult to imagine it going to the end. The leaders of the general classification risk, indeed, to be explained at the top of Granon.
Only second visit to the Granon after 1986
This difficult pass (11.3 km at 9.2% average) has been climbed very little by the runners of the Tour. Only once did the peloton climb it. It was for a summit finish in 1986. The Spaniard Eduardo Chozas had won, during a stage which was also the last of Bernard Hinault’s 79 days in yellow.
The memory of Henri Desgrange, summit of the Tour
With this rare Granon pass, the runners will cross a much better known pass, the Galibier. It will be the highest point of the Tour, traditionally baptized souvenir Henri Desgrange, after the name of the organizer of the first Tour de France in 1903. The rider who passes the top of the Galibier first will receive a bonus of €5,000.
The favorite: watch out for Jonas Vingegaard
If the Jumbo-Visma want to shake the statue of the boss of this Tour Tadej Pogacar, they would be well advised to shake the UAE Emirates team soon enough. We can imagine Wout Van Aert, Sepp Kuss, even Primoz Roglic launching the first banderillas in the Galibier to isolate Pogacar. Jonas Vingegaard, 2nd in the Tour last year and still runner-up to the young Slovenian this year, will undoubtedly try something, like on the Ventoux in 2021, if he has the legs. A victory for the Dane at the Granon and the Tour would be restarted. It will be hot, not just because the temperatures will be high on the roads.
The eye of Thierry Gouvenou, course manager
“There, we can talk about the toughest stage of the Tour with such a high finish at 2400 meters above sea level. It’s Granon and its 9.3% average slope, 1% more than Alpe-d’Huez! It may not seem like much to the uninitiated, but I can guarantee you it’s huge. In addition we add altitude and fatigue since before we will have climbed the Col du Télégraphe then the Col du Galibier. This stage is intended for pure climbers.
As it does not come last in the mountain menu, there may still be a little freshness for some. But I have one certainty: whoever wins the Tour de France will not be far from first place at the end of this day. For a long time, we didn’t go to the Col du Granon because it was complicated to set up a correct finish site. But for some time now we have managed to largely deport the technical area, which offers us the possibility of returning, for the arrivals, to large places that we had unfortunately had to abandon before.
This is also the case for example at the Porte pass, the Galibier pass or the Izoard pass. In the 1990s or 2000s, it was complicated to go back there with the size taken by the Tour. Now we have more trumps up our sleeve by freeing ourselves from technical constraints. And that makes it possible to restore its nobility to cycling. »