Sports Poets Society

161 km | Wednesday July 22 | Start 12:45 – Finish 16:50 CET STAGE FACT Eddy Merckx has happy memories of start town Digne-les-Bains: it was here in 1969 that he took one of his 6 stage wins in that race. This is it: fresh from a rest day, the final push and four arduous days in the Alps start here. Regardless of how things have gone so far, there’ll be nowhere to hide for the race leader. The stages ahead are generally short, designed to encourage aggressive racing. So what’s in store? Excitement. It’s a lumpy stage that will could tempt some of the KOM (King Of Mountain) contenders into the break but the GC battle will ignite on the penultimate climb, the 23 km Col d’Allos. Those GC hopefuls needing to reduce their deficit could attack on the final two climbs, but the Pra Loup summit finish is probably not long enough to produce big gaps. Didn’t the Dauphiné do this stage? It did indeed. Romain Bardet took full advantage of the fast 16 km descent off the Allos , openin...