The winner of the breakaway world champs was Lennard Kamna! After being on the massive early move of climbers, the German infiltrated himself in the official day's break and in the main climb of the day he followed the attacks of Carapaz before putting on an accelaration before the summit, which he then took advantage of and did a brilliant solo into Villard-de-Lans winning in front of breakaway companions Richard Carapaz and Sebastian Reichenbach. As for the GC riders it was a calm day as expected, although that final pitch to the line had some moves from Pogacar and Lopez it was too short of an effort and everyone arrived together to the line, expect Quintana who's clearly struggling from his crashes (or form really).
Positive: Bora finally got their win and from a rider who was destined to take one with the form he's had, Trentin getting some good Green Jersey points and Movistar consolidating their teams classification.
Negative: Quintana loosing time in the GC fight and his 9th place, also Alaphilippe who blew up completely again when in the big moves, not pacing himself.
The Route
Stage 18 is a two-faced day completely. The first half of the stage is almost pan-flat except for a little ascent there in the first 40 kilometers, it can be considered the queen stage, alongside the Grand Colombier they're the great summit finishes of the race, however after today there's still some more ground to flip the GC upside down.
The second one though, is absolutely brutal. Why? Two mammoth Alpine passes, the first one is the Col de la Madeleine via it's hardest ascents, over 19Km at 8% is absolutely crushing and in itself would be enough for the race to be completely broken.
However, it probably won't, that's because they will have to take another massive climb, the newly (last year) surfaced Col de la Loze above Meribel. The climb to Meribel is itself hard, but the new part is crushing to every single rider. We're talking about 5Km at 10% but they are as far from constant as it could be, there's several ramps around 20%. The whole climb is over 21Km at almost 8%.
The Weather
Some lower temperatures, but most importantly there is the chance of some rain. Now in the final climb it won't make much of a difference but some riders love the rain, and in the descent of the Madeleine it can add a bit more risk than anyone is willing to take.
The Favourites
Is this a GC day or a breakaway day? Everyday we ask this question first, now here for sure we'll have a similar scenario to the Grand Colombier day, although there are lots of hungry climbers looking for a big win the begining of the stage is quite flat and with an intermediate sprint, which almost automatically means Bora and Deceuninck are set to come to a new clash on the road. Adding to that, Jumbo chased all day in stage 15, why exactly I don't know but they can do that again as Martin and Jansen won't be of much use in the mountains. It won't be easy for the pure climbers to assemble in front with such a flat start, and there will be lots of roulers and maybe sprinters (let's call them "intruders") who as we've seen won't please Jumbo's goal of limiting breakaways.
So of course we can mention some of the big names though, although some had big efforts again today I would look for those who've spent a lot more time in the peloton and in the gruppetos. Dan Martin (if you don't count Bernal) is the only pure climber who's strong enough to take a win that finished down in the grupetto today, focused on the task at hand. You have former win contenders (if injuries weren't a factor) Emanuel Buchmann but mainly Thibaut Pinot who have been saving themselves for this third week after having their GC campaigns wrecked, young mega talent Marc Hirschi, Basque three-week experts Mikel Nieve and Pello Bilbao who are both used to winning in the last week of a Grand Tour. And sure, the list is bigger, much bigger, but when you have so many riders spending their bullets like for example Alaphilippe who took up breakaway attempts pretty much everyday in the last week who'd be completely burnt if he was in the dispute tomorrow, you'd wanna put your money on those who've been racing smart.
But where the real contenders are is in the peloton for sure, the final climb will be raced full-on and it's an almost 60-minute effort, the GC riders will claw back minutes on anyone left in front. It's another day for Jumbo to grind Madeleine and probably most of Loze, they'll be trying to keep everything under control for Roglic. And on the other side there's Pogacar, who'll like the signs of David De la Cruz apparently having recovered from his injuries. Then there's, well, the rest. Don't like to talk about it like that but that's certainly what will happen, Pogacar and Roglic will be rolling in front and everyone else will try to follow their wheels so as to save/attack the third place in the podium. You have Porte and Lopez who look to be on the rise, Landa who's a fan of pure and long climbs, Yates who's untrustworthy however has looked very good until now, and Uran who's followed the wheels during 17 days and has gotten on the podium like that.
Prediction Time
⭐ Martinez, Uran, Bernal, Porte, Pinot
You know I was going to make a bold call. I had Bilbao for today, he didn't go so I thought he can win tomorrow but at the same time I think it's a GC day, chances are I'll still have him as a main favourite for the following day. Then I thought, Lopez in on a great increase of form and he can really pull something off. But when I think deeply it just doesn't look like he's above the Slovenians, and tomorrow has some rain prediction which is where Pogacar rides best, it can give him the little push that's needed to take the win.
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