The Five Crucial Stages in the 2023 Tour de France
The 2023 Tour de France begins its 21-day journey on Saturday in Bilbao, the Basque capital, with a 21-day route dotted with spectacular landscapes and everyday obstacles intended to spark sports drama.
A look at five of the 3,404-kilometer route’s most captivating stages, where Tadej Pogacar’s fight to reclaim the champion’s yellow jersey from Jonas Vingegaard will serve as the key storyline.
Stage 1: The Basque region of Spain
The three-day trip begins with a fantastic tour of Bilbao. It will provide the first yellow jersey of a hilly 110th edition of the greatest cycling race in the world as it winds through slender, forested slopes.
The steep stage 1 course passes popular tourist destinations like the Guggenheim museum designed by Frank Gehry and extends an invitation to attack-minded outlaws like the Dutch sensation Mathieu van der Poel. Stage 2 is similarly filled with televisual vistas that encourage potential thrills and spills and ends with a downhill rush to San Sebastian’s picturesque horseshoe harbor. The fervent Basque supporters will play a part in the opening act.
Nineth stage: the volcano
The 13km climb of the Puy de Dome volcano, a World Heritage Site, where Fausto Coppi and Luis Ocana once achieved legendary triumphs, offers the peloton a setting befitting of heroes since it is exposed, bare, and brutally steep.
Massive crowds will support the first climb of this volcano since 1988 while providing eye candy for the general public watching from across the world on stage 9. Even team vehicles will not be allowed as the cyclists race the last, very steep 4 miles in beautiful seclusion. Here, the champion Vingegaard and his important adversary Pogacar may leave their imprint. Some of the front-runners will likely stumble over the finish line, their prospects in shambles.
Stage 17: A two-for-one
The crucial moment could be seen on stage 17 from Mont Blanc to Courchevel. Not just because of the stage’s 60 or so kilometers of climbing, which include a 28-kilometer ascent of the Col de Loze mountain to a height of 2,304 meters, but also because it comes after the Tour’s only individual time trial. Any rider who applied the pressure the day before runs the danger of overcooking in this grueling matchup in the Upper Savoy.
20th stage: Last-chance bar
Only stage 20 in the remote eastern Vosges highlands will determine the winner for 2023. Any one of the six hills might be used to overtake a fading front runner, particularly if sickness has taken the type of toll seen in previous major races when leaders have found themselves without colleagues.
Stage 21: Final lap of the Champs Elysees
Mark Cavendish, a seasoned British sprint superstar, is set to retire this year. What a fitting finale stage 21 would be if the ‘Manx Missile’ managed to surpass cycling veteran Eddy Merckx by swooping to a record-breaking 35th Tour de France stage victory.
A sixth triumph on the rocky Champs Elysees in Paris would be a fitting finale to his extraordinary career, giving his adoring supporters one more sight of the signature victory shout.
