With only five stages left in the 2024 Tour de France, the battle for the green jersey, awarded to the points classification winner, is set to reach a dramatic conclusion. With no clear opportunities left for sprinters, the competition will hinge on the intermediate sprints.

Intermarché-Wanty’s Biniam Girmay has had a strong grip on the maillot vert since winning his first-ever Tour de France stage (and the first-ever stage won by a Black rider). He went on to win two more stages, capturing several intermediate sprint points along the way. All this has combined to give him 376 total points in the green jersey race.

After a slow start to the Tour, another favourite for the green jersey competition, Jasper Philipsen of Alpecin-Deceuninck, has come on strong of late, winning three of the last seven stages.

Up until Tuesday, Girmay seemed poised to secure the green jersey, even if he didn’t win the final sprint stage. His substantial lead appeared safe as long as he could continue to accumulate points steadily. However, disaster struck just two kilometres from the finish when Girmay crashed. Though he managed to finish the race, he failed to earn any sprint points.

On the other side of that perfect storm was Philipsen, who followed his world-champion lead-out man Mathieu van der Poel to his third stage win and fifty points for the day, bringing his total for the Tour up to 344.

In the end, it was a massive swing in the race for the green jersey that brought Girmay’s lead over Philipsen to a precarious thirty-two points.

Though Tuesday’s stage was the last chance for big points, as it was the race’s final flat stage, there are still opportunities for Girmay to increase his lead or for Philipsen to close the gap and potentially win his second straight green jersey.

But the big mountains loom between here and Nice, and Girmay’s exceptional climbing abilities throughout the Tour could prove crucial in maintaining his lead—a fact not lost on Philipsen.

“Everything is possible,”

“Everything is possible,” Philipsen said after his Stage 16 win. “But it’s really hard. [Girmay] is climbing really well.”

The next four stages each feature an intermediate sprint segment, with the final stage being an individual time trial. Wednesday’s Stage 17 and Friday’s Stage 19, with minimal climbing before the sprints, will likely see intense competition between the two riders.

However, Thursday’s Stage 18 and Saturday’s Stage 20 feature multiple categorized climbs before the sprint segment. Stage 18 will see the peloton climb a pair of Category-3 climbs, the Col du Festre and the Côte de Corps. From there, it’s a bit more climbing, though uncategorized, to the day’s sprint segment at kilometer 84.3.

Saturday’s segment comes around the same point in the stage, in the eighty-seventh kilometre. However, that sprint is preceded by a pair of leg-burning climbs. The first is the Category 2 Col de Braus. The next is the Category 1 Col de Turini, which is more than double the length at 20.7 km, averaging 5.7 percent. The segment is also halfway up the 7.5 km, 7.1 percent category-1 Col de la Colmaine.

If Girmay is going to make history again, becoming the first Black racer ever to win the green jersey, those climbs will likely be essential to his fight.

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