What to say! One of the most incredible performances in recent years, Tadej Pogacar has today turned everyone on their head after winning the time-trial with a massive advantage (over Tom Dumoulin and Richie Porte) and has become the new yellow jersey. He's taken 1:56 on Roglic. It was a day of massive gaps, with the podium completely changing shape as did the Top10.
Positive: Pogacar. Pogacar. Pogacar. That's really it, he deserved to be the only positive from the day. But mentioning the arise to the podium of Richie Porte is also something I'm really delighted to do, Mikel Landa, Enric Mas and Tom Dumoulin also benefited from the day, whilst Damiano Caruso infiltrated the Top10 with a great performance today.
Negative: Miguel Angel Lopez dropped from 3rd to 6th and is the one who lost the most today. Adam Yates and Valverde also dropped a couple places, and of course Roglic has had his bad day in very critical timing, a shame but I'm sure he'll be back even stronger.
The Route
And the final day. Voila! You know all about it, short stage, long procession and a sprint surely to happen on the streets of Paris.
The Weather
Despite the heat there's a little unstable bout of weather for the afternoon that may make the roads dangerous. It won't be a risk to the GC riders, chances are the times will be neutralized but the sprint will surely be sketchy.
The Favourites
Despite the recent years casting some doubt still on the final circuit, with the rouleurs not being afraid to attack I expect it to come to a sprint finish in the end although I believe there will be some dangerous attacks.
As a pure sprint stage with no dificulties on the profile and not many technical difficulties it should be a standard yet exciting sprint. One Caleb Ewan absolutely needs to get in order to make up for his place in the race for the last 10 days, pressure will be on for him to succeed even though his team is down to 4 supporting riders. The other wildcard for the win is Cees Bol, Sunweb had a brilliant race and he hit the post a couple times, he's at the level of his peers and has a really good leadout but needs everything to click for it to fit. There's Sam Bennett who will take the green jersey, the first time Peter Sagan is beaten in this competition so that alone shows how good he and his team raced, Bennett will be eyeing another win tomorrow whilst Sagan will be there but realistically hasn't showed the speed necessary to take a win.
Alexander Kristoff took the opening stage and will be hoping to take the last one aswell, Elia Viviani has had a not so good race but is still in the picture and he's had Consonni and Laporte do good performances, they'll be hoping to connect the dots tomorrow and gather success, Wout van Aert who may get another chance to succeed, Trek who's got a strong leadout, who they'll opt to leadout is usually a fair question but for sure Mads Pedersen will be the chosen one, expect them also to go on the attack if the final kilometers get tricky. Matteo Trentin, Luka Mezgec, Bryan Coquard, Hugo Hofstetter and Niccolo Bonifazio should be wildcards there looking for a good spot, whilst NTT is my final call as they have a good leadout, just need to set it up perfectly who's almost had success in this race and is usually a strong finisher in the Champs Elysees!
Prediction Time
⭐ Sagan, Viviani, WV.Aert, Mezgec, EB.Hagen
I'm going with Cees Bol for this final stage. I've backed him up during the race, his first week was so strong and he has a win in his legs, I'm surprised it didn't come until today but I think he will still do it, ad the team will be fully focused on helping him do it.
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