The Route
Stage 1, the beginning of the race is one that as usual suits the sprinters but it does feature some traps along the way. The stage is made of a loop around Saint-Cye-L'École which is around 80 kilometers long. The start and finish area is not the same but it is within the same town so the riders won't actually go through the finish line but will ride the whole final kilometers before the final lap, everyone will know the roads well.
There are some short hilltops in the final part of the circuit:
32.5Km to go - 1.4Km, 5.2%
26Km to go - 0.7Km, 7.1%
20Km to go - 1.2Km, 5.3%
15.5Km to go - 0.4Km, 8.5%
8Km to go - 0.7Km, 4.9%
I don't think it's possible to have stage-deciding attacks in these hills, but splits can appear in the peloton, specially in the IS point at Châteaufort where the road is steep and very narrow towards the end, a combined effort can easily split the peloton. From there on, some rolling roads to the finish, which will not be technical at all but it does tilt up slightly up to the line, the final kilometer has an average gradient of 2.5%, nothing that'll stop the sprinters from contesting but the final meters are visibly uphill at perhaps 4%, will be far from a normal sprint.
The Weather
It will be cold, freezing actually overnight, may mean some wet spots on the small descents the riders will face, but there shouldn't be much influence, there's a slight breeze from the northeast meaning a slight tailwind sprint.
The Favourites
The likely outcome for tomorrow is a sprint wether there is or not a big move on some of those climbs, a hard pace, and with the amount of fast men coming in it is essentially impossible not to see a lot of teams chasing hard even if there's a very dangerous attack. Some would benefit from that scenario of a hard race on the hills, Michael Matthews is used to start his season off strong and he needs a rough race, BikeExchange may try to push it hard, Christophe Laporte, Magnus Cort Nielsen, Ben Swift, Bryan Coquard and Danny van Poppel are all outsiders who could benefit from their rivals coming out of some sections suffocated, they can also benefit from the slight uphill tilt.
The most expected scenario though is a bunch sprint and you've got two main riders with a brutal leadout, first one being Sam Bennett who's got Michael Morkov and the classics block behind him, and on the other side you've got Arnaud Démare alongside his full setup. The advantage should be on the Irish as Démare as yet to take a win this year, but even if their plans go perfectly they will have hard competition. You've got teams like Bora with Pascal Ackermann, Trek with Mads Pedersen, DSM with Cees Bol who have a very strong and big leadout aswell and can easily put their man in pole position, and you've got some powerhouse sprinters like Phil Bauhaus or Alexander Kristoff who can surprise, there's Giacomo Nizzolo, Nacer Bouhanni and Jasper Philipsen as some smaller figures who can take advantage of their weight in that finale, and you've got in the end an Andre Greipel/Rudy Barbier combination for Israel, probably both will be doing their own sprint.
It's a crazy lineup, a crazy sprint is expected as there won't be space for all of these riders.
Prediction Time
⭐ Bauhaus, Matthews, Kristoff, Bouhanni, Philipsen, Barbier
I expect Sam Bennett to start off the race with a win, having probably the most dialed leadout and the legs to resist the hills and have the fastest kick.
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