Tarragona to Barcelona 183.9 km. Undulating and climbing to hilly.
Tarragona is a town of some Roman ruins so we may see these when the riders set off. The Tour has never been to Tarragona before. The weather is 32C with a moderate breeze.
The race is more or less on the flat for the first 86 kilometres. Then it will become undulating/hilly at Cote de Beuges with 6 kms at 6% gradient. It continues up and down until the descent into Barcelona which includes a tricky climb to the Montjuic Castle which will sort out the riders and only a handful of the best will be capable of winning. Pogacar is favourite to win with Van der Poel close behind.
There is a categorised sprint at 86 kilometers where sprinters go for points for the green jersey and 5 categorised climbs from 89 kilometers where points can be picked up for the polka dot jersey.
Watching the Tour live without a TNT subscription in Britain is a tv sleuths game. I have found I can see it live today on Welsh tv channel with Welsh commentary on S4C. At least I can enjoy the scenery, that is when they stop talking in the studio. (HBO Max did not give me free access to the Tour).
Well, the scenery really is good along the Mediterranean coast, beautiful
I'll update with the Stage 2 finishing result later.
Very emotional scenes at the finish with Pogacar and team mate Del Toro coming in together with Del Toro taking it for the stage win but arm in arm with Pogacar. Very sporting of Pogacar Much crying and hugging and emotion between the two team mates. Vingegaard came in 4th, It was some hill and descent up and down Montjuic Castle.
The overall GC is Vingegaard still in yellow jersey:
1. J Vingegaard 4h 1' 48"
2. T Pogacar 4h 1' 54" + 6
3. R Evenpoel 4h 2' 03" + 15
4. I Del Toro 4h 2' 04" +16
5. J Ayuso 4h 2' 07" +19
6. P Seixas 4h 2' 30" +42
7. R Gregoire 4h 2' 32" + 44
8. R Lipowitz 4h 2' 33" + 45
9. L Martinez 4h 2' 41" +53
10. T Pidcock 4h 2' 48" +1'.00
Stage 3 tomorrow, a mountain stage through the Pyrennes into France, Granollers to Les Angles, 195.9 km, elevation gain 3850 metres. The yellow jersey may change hands.
Hi, thanks for your comment. It is good to know when fellow bloggers are ok.
ReplyDeleteAnd thanks for the results! I haven't watched tv for over two years and generally catch up with cycling on youtube. S4C does have subtitles in English btw..although not needing them I don't know how to get them!!
I assumed he was taking a voluntary blog break so it was nice to hear the enforced reason for this! I happily watched the Tour on S4C with sound muted. I did look extensively for the sub-title button but couldn't find it but actually didn't really want to have the distraction of reading them. The scenery was without doubt superb.
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