Stage 7: Champagnole to Le Grand-Bornand (166.5 km)
Date: Saturday, August 17, 2024
Streaming: 🇬🇧 🇪🇺 Discovery+/Eurosport; 🇺🇸 Peacock; 🇦🇺 SBS; 🇨🇦 FloBikes
Start time: 10:50 CEST
Estimated finish time: 15:27 CEST
Stage type: Mountains
Summary: Mountains! Finally!
The seventh stage is the longest of the race at 166.4 km, and the most challenging in terms of vertical gain so far. With almost 3,000 m of elevation on tap, it’s going to be a brutal day for the peloton, and a proper general classification fight.
We’ve got our first Cat 1 of the race, the 12 km long Col de la Croix de la Serra. It’s early in the day, only 45.8 km into the stage. It will split the peloton and make the day extra long for the sprinters, especially Charlotte Kool. The winner of the first two stages has been struggling during the fifth and sixth stages already and is likely dreading the final two stages.
After the first climb the (reduced) peloton descends into a Cat 4, the Côte de Bois d’Arlod. This 2.4 km climb is the shortest of the race and has the most amount of recovery following it.
With 55.4 km to go the peloton races over a Cat 3 that is 4 km on paper but continues to climb for another couple of kilometres. From there they have some space before the final two climbs of the day, two Cat 2s that are back to back, with only a short descent between the two.
Technically, the finish is atop a Cat 2 that is 7 km long, but if you look at the profile the final ascent comes off the back of another Cat 2 (5.4 km). If one of these climbs finished off the stage it would still be a GC day, but with the two so close together, and only 2 km of descending between them, they are almost one long climb.
While the final day is reserved for the final general classification battle, the race could also be determined on Saturday. It will be the best climbers who roll across the line first.
My pick: Évita Muzic. The FDJ-Suez rider has been targeting these final two stages for months, after being left off the team for the Paris Olympics. No one will be happier to see the race enter the mountains than her. Plus! She’s basically on home roads.
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