Profile & map of the 15th stage (Sunday, 17 July: Rodez - Carcassone - 202.5 kilometres)
Re-Live: This is how the 15th stage of the 2022 Tour de France went
Neutral start: 13:05
Official start: 13:15
Finish: ~17:39-18:04
Rolf Aldag's assessment: Made for sprinters
The Tour-de-France-The circus is heading for the mountains again. It is a good tradition to plan a stopover in the World Heritage city of Carcassonne. The double-fortified city is not only famous among historians, but also in cycling history. Last year, Mark Cavendish sensationally equalled Eddy Merckx's stage win record on his Tour comeback.
The Tour planners have once again designed today's section as a sprint stage. A final climb around 50 kilometres before the finish is followed by a longer, sloping route. The generous finish to the wide Boulevard Marcou has been designed in such a way that it should not provoke any major upsets on this day. It is therefore to be expected that the sprinters' teams, whose aces are still in the race, will control the race in the last quarter of the stage at the latest and deliver their captains as desired shortly before the finish.
So much for the obvious side of the stage. Personally, however, I also see a second possibility: why shouldn't a daring breakaway rider look for his chance on this long and again very hilly section over often narrow roads before the finale? There aren't many opportunities left in this Tour for riders with a strong tempo to polish up their own balance sheet with a stage win.
As a professional cyclist, our expert Rolf Aldag rode the Tour de France ten times up to 2004; as manager and sporting director, he has led various top teams through France and this year, for the first time, he will be in charge of the German team Bora-Hansgrohe as sporting director at the Tour de France. There are few people who can tell so vividly what can happen on the stages of a grand tour and within the peloton.
What weighting does the stage have for the individual rankings?
For TOUR the 53-year-old sports manager has once again carefully studied the elevation profiles and route tables for this year's Tour de France. In his predictions, he names the teams and riders he sees at the front on each day, assesses the difficulty of the routes and says where he expects attacks and from whom. Will there be a bunch sprint? Will a breakaway group make it to the finish?
Aldag also assesses for TOUR what role each stage plays for the classification jerseys (see above): The more coloured jerseys our expert assigns to a stage, the greater its significance for the respective classification. The yellow jersey symbolises the weight of the respective stage in the overall classification, the green jersey stands for the importance of the best sprinter in the points classification and the red dotted jersey for the mountain classification, i.e. for the best climber.
TV broadcast & live stream of the 11th stage of the Tour de France 2022*
- ARD - Das Erste: 14:03 - 17:59
- Eurosport 1: 12:55 - 17:45
- More live pictures on ARD One, Sportschau.de and Eurosportplayer.com**
- You can also find all the important information here in our live ticker
The preview with Rolf Aldag of the stages of the 2022 Tour de France
This is how the stages of the 2022 Tour de France have gone so far
- The race report for stage 1
- The race report for stage 2
- The race report for stage 3
- The race report for stage 4
- The race report for stage 5
- The most spectacular pictures of stage 5
- The race report for stage 6
- The race report for stage 7
- The race report for stage 8
- The race report for stage 9
- The race report for stage 10
- The race report for the 11th stage
- The race report for the 12th stage
- The race report for the 13th stage
- The race report for stage 14
*Broadcast times subject to change; please note updates in teletext and on the Internet
**The Eurosport internet live stream is subject to a charge.
