{"id":193342,"date":"2023-07-10T11:11:38","date_gmt":"2023-07-10T11:11:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/?p=193342"},"modified":"2023-07-10T11:11:38","modified_gmt":"2023-07-10T11:11:38","slug":"new-tour-de-france-route-strategy-produces-first-week-fireworks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2023\/07\/10\/new-tour-de-france-route-strategy-produces-first-week-fireworks\/","title":{"rendered":"New Tour de France Route Strategy Produces First-Week Fireworks"},"content":{"rendered":"

You have to take your hat off to the Amaury Sport Organization (ASO), the company that owns and organizes the Tour de France, for wanting to shake up the traditional narrative of the race. In the past, the first week of the Tour has usually been sprinter-friendly, often opening with a time trial followed by a number of more or less flat stages that ended, more often than not, in a bunch sprint. But not this year.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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This year, the Tour de France opened with two stages that contained hills and mountains, as the ASO route planners apparently wanted to have a race that produced from the start the kind of fireworks that usually occur in the high mountains and in the final week of the race.<\/p>\n

Well, they got their wish. The sparks began to fly right already at the start of stage 1, which offered five categorized climbs and an uphill finish, making it the ideal arena for a successful breakaway. But apparently, the breakaway riders hadn\u2019t counted on a yellow-jersey battle breaking out so early in the race. And that is precisely what happened, with Tadej Poga\u010dar\u2019s UAE Team Emirates drawing first blood over the Jumbo-Visma of his GC rival Jonas Vingegaard<\/a> as Adam Yates took the stage and the yellow jersey (and also drew first blood over his twin brother Simon who finished second).<\/p>\n

The GC battle began in earnest on the second stage, which also contained five categorized climbs, as Poga\u010dar raced to steal seconds from Vingegaard and ended the second day 11 seconds ahead of last year\u2019s Tour winner. There were still 19 days of racing to go and all eyes were already on the fight for the yellow jersey. Stage 2 was also noteworthy because it was the first of at least four stages thatJumbo-Visma\u2019s super-domestique Wout van Aert had targeted but failed to win. The Belgian\u2019s quest for a Tour stage win, even as he works for Vingegaard, has become one of the noteworthy sub-narratives of this year\u2019s Tour.<\/p>\n

The battle for the yellow jersey took a dramatic turn on stage 5, 162.7 km between Pau and Laruns, which already featured a Beyond Category (HC) mountain, the Col du Soudet (15.2 km at 7.2%), at the halfway mark. But it was on the final climb of the stage, up the Col de Marie Blanque (7.7 km at 8.6%), that the mano a mano exploded into life when, 3 km from the summit, Vingegaard stepped on the gas and left Poga\u010dar spinning his pedals.<\/p>\n

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\ud83d\udcc8 @letourdata<\/a> #TDF2023<\/a> https:\/\/t.co\/kH2Ei9H1n4<\/a><\/p>\n

— Tour de France\u2122 (@LeTour) July 10, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n