Every morning during this Tour de France 2020, we invite you to decipher the stage of the day by three essential things or not, to know about the course and its characteristics. This Saturday for the Grand Départ, the 22 teams and 176 riders of the Tour de France will set off from Nice for 156 km before returning to the capital of the Alpes-Maritimes.
Not yet the terrain of climbers.This Tour de France is announced as the most mountainous and the most difficult to enter in decades. The organizers wanted to escape the traditional triptych: first week for sprinters, the second for backpackers and the last for climbers. But the first step could nevertheless smile on the big calves of the peloton. The coast of Rimez, classified in 3rd category, will be climbed twice, the last of which is 50 km from the finish line. In a traditionally nervous first stage, the risk-taking of backpackers seems excluded and the finish on the Promenade des Anglais will be played between sprinters. The Australian Caleb Ewan (Lotto-Soudal), winner of three stages last year, could be the first winner in 2020. "It will probably be a match between the breakaways and the sprinter teams who could have the last word", forecast Thierry Gouvenou, the technical director of the Tour de France.
To the good memory of the Badger. Nice has already hosted the Tour 36 times, but the Grand Départ only once. It was in 1981. Bernard Hinault, then just double winner of the event (1978 and 1979), came forward with the rage to erase his retirement from the previous year. During the 5.8 km prologue in the streets of Nice, Hinault, dressed in his world champion's tunic, donned the first yellow jersey by winning 7 seconds in front of the Dutchman Gerrie Knetemann and relegating the outgoing winner, Joop Zoetemelk at 23 seconds.
Rudy Molard at home. Thibaut Pinot's teammate at Groupama-FDJ will play at home for the first stages. If Rudy Molard will celebrate his 31st birthday on September 17 near Méribel in the third week, one of the veterans of the French team knows the roads of the region perfectly. He lives all year round in Antibes, a handful of kilometers from the finish. The course of the first weekend has no secrets for him and his presence could help Pinot not to fall into a few traps.