Stage 9 | Sunday, 7 July | Troyes - Troyes | 199 kilometres | 2000 vertical metres
Rolf Aldag's assessment of stage 9: Trembling on gravel
Now the men's Tour de France is also getting its gravel stage, following in the footsteps of the women's Tour, the Giro d'Italia and the Italian spring spectacle Strade Bianche. It is a stage that many in the peloton have been dreading for months. Especially those with their eyes on the classification don't necessarily like such arrangements. The race is characterised by 14 gravel sections, with climbs of up to 15 per cent in between. Today's route is a slightly longer alternative to the stage of the Women's Tour 2022, but is likely to have the same characteristics. I remember a colleague telling me after the race: "That was chaos, with all the punctures and defects.
For the teams, it's all about meticulous preparation, especially in terms of tyre choice and pressure, to reduce the likelihood of unwanted stops. This is because many sectors, similar to Paris-Roubaix, are all about positioning. If you're unlucky, you can pay a high price in the classification. I don't know if you really need a stage like this in the Tour. I understand that the organisers are jumping on the bandwagon. For specialists like gravel world champion Matej Mohoric, on the other hand, this should be a real chance for another stage win. The stage is certainly also suitable for other classics hunters with strong riding technique. But I think that gravel racing is a niche of its own. I'll be happy if we get through this stage without a fiasco.
The gravel sectors on stage 9 of the Tour de France 2024
- Kilometre 47.3 | Bligny - Bergeres | Length 2000 metres | Difficulty *
- Kilometre 67 | Baroville | Length 1200 metres | Difficulty ***
- Kilometre 96.6 | Hautes Forets | Length 1500 metres | Difficulty **
- Kilometre 105.2 | Polisy - Celles-sur-Ource | Length 3400 metres | Difficulty ***
- Kilometre 118.6 | Loches-sur-Ource - Chacenay | Length 4200 metres | Difficulty ***
- Kilometre 131.9 | Plateau de la cote des Bar | Length 2200 metres | Difficulty *
- Kilometre 140.8 | Thieffrain - Magnant | Length 3900 metres | Difficulty ***
- Kilometre 151.9 | Briel-sur-Barse | Length 2200 metres | Difficulty *
- Kilometre 165.7 | Ru de Paradis | Length 1200 metres | Difficulty *
- kilometre 169 | Fresnoy-Le-Chateau - Clerey | length 1800 metres | difficulty *
- kilometre 175 | Verrieres | length 1500 metres | difficulty *
- Kilometre 178 | Daudes | Length 1900 metres | Difficulty *
- Kilometre 182.3 | Montaulin - Rouilly-Saint-Loup | Length 2200 metres | Difficulty **
- Kilometre 189.4 | Saint-Parres-aux-Tertres | Length 3000 metres | Difficulty **
Schedule, TV coverage & live stream of stage 9 of the Tour de France 2024
- Neutral start: 13:15, sharp start 13:35
- Estimated arrival time: between 17:49 and 18:13
- TV broadcast: ARD 14:20 - 18:00, Eurosport 1 12:45 - 18:00
- Live stream: ARD one, sportschau.de, GCN+, Discovery+, Eurosport
- All stages of the Tour de France 2024 at a glance
- All info on TV broadcast & live stream
- The start list
- The regulations
The 9th stage of the Tour de France 2024 in the live ticker
TOUR expert Rolf Aldag
As a racer with a great overview, Rolf Aldag was a bank for successful Tour teams and supported Bjarne Riis and Jan Ullrich in their victories in France. As a sports manager and sporting director, the Westphalian is also one of the most respected representatives in the industry. He is also planning the Tour de France mission again in 2024 with the newly named Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe team. As in previous years, Aldag has once again analysed this year's Tour exclusively for the readers of TOUR.
The 55-year-old has looked at the dramaturgy of the route planners and gone into detail to assess the possible course of the individual stages. In this work, he reflects on which constellations are likely in the race and which riders are likely to have particular hopes - or worries - on which stages. He also includes his view on innovations and trends in the business. In addition, Aldag provides a compact overview of the relevance of the respective stage for which classification. He assigns zero to three jerseys per classification: for the overall classification (yellow jersey), the points classification for the best sprinters (green jersey) and the Tour's mountain classification (dotted jersey). In this way, Rolf Aldag's forecast offers added value every day.
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