Tour de France Stage 13 Preview: The Only Individual Time Trial

Riders will have to pace themselves over the Pyrenean foothills before a long, flat road to the finish.


Whit Yost |

In an interesting twist, the only individual time trial in the 2019 Tour comes sandwiched between mountain stages, which will give climbers a chance to quickly make up whatever time they lose on Stage 13’s rolling, 27K loop through the countryside south of Pau.

The stage begins in Pau near the Tour des Géants, a park commemorating past winners of the race. After winding through the city a bit, riders will head south into the Pyrenean foothills, where they will meet a series of rolling climbs on their way to the first and second intermediate time checks of the day.

After the second time check over the top of the Côte d’Esquillot, the course heads north back toward Pau, at which point things get a little easier. The road here is long, straight, and pretty flat, so we’ll see which riders paced themselves over the early climbs, saving some juice to power through to the finish. The last 3.5K are back in Pau, with the finish line in the city’s Place de Verdun.

Riders to Watch

Stage 13 is a course for powerful riders, true specialists who can measure their efforts carefully over the early climbs and save themselves for the fast trip to the finish.

Stage 10 winner Wout van Aert won a very similar time trial at the Critérium du Dauphiné in June, making him the top favorite for Friday. His Jumbo–Visma teammate, Tony Martin, is a four-time world champion in the discipline and seems to have rediscovered himself in his first year with the Dutch outfit.

American Chad Haga is also a contender. The Sunweb rider won the final time trial at the Giro d’Italia (albeit on a much shorter course) and has likely focused on this stage for much of the Tour.

The big question mark surrounds the yellow jersey, currently worn by Julian Alaphilippe. The Frenchman is no slouch when it comes to time trialing, having finished eighth in the ITT at the Dauphiné, losing 59 seconds to van Aert. He heads into the stage 1:12 ahead of Ineos’s Geraint Thomas, which might be enough to keep yellow for another day.

But Thomas is by far the best time trialist of the GC contenders this year. Even if he doesn’t take the lead, the defending champion should at least put some time between himself and his rivals—especially on a course like this.

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