Profile, climbs & map of the 17th stage (Wednesday, 20 July: Saint-Gaudens - Peyragudes - 129.7 kilometres)
Re-Live: This is how the 17th stage of the Tour de France went
Neutral start: 13:15
Official start: 13:25
Finish: ~16:48-17:14
Rolf Aldag's assessment: opportunity and suffering in the mountains
That looks difficult! The framework data for the 17th stage of the Tour de France 2022 don't seem so monstrous, but it's worth taking a closer look: All four challenging mountains, and therefore the majority of the 3300 metres of altitude gain on this stage, are packed into just 75 kilometres. In addition, there is the mountain finish at the airfield in the winter sports resort of Peyragudes, which is approached from the north for the first time - that means around eight kilometres with a 7.8 per cent gradient before the finish.
Unlike the stage wins by Alejandro Valverde (2012) and Romain Bardet (2017), the riders cannot recover in the short descent from Peyresourde before the final kilometres. The gradient directly before the finish is 16 per cent. You could get the impression that the Tour organisers want to demonstrate the progress made by road bike groupsets with these mountain finishes. This and tomorrow's stage offer opportunities to challenge the established classification.
Those who were not in optimal form at the start of the Tour, for example, will have the opportunity to correct this in the Pyrenees. However, the advantage lies with the better-placed riders who manage their lead. The ambition of the elite and the stage profile make this day extremely unpleasant for sprinters. They only have one goal: to stay within the time limit.
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 17th stage of the Tour de France 2022*
- ARD - Das Erste: 15:10 - 17:15
- Eurosport 1: 13:00 - 17:00
- 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
- The race report for the 15th stage
- The race report for the 16th stage
*Broadcast times subject to change; please note updates in teletext and on the Internet
**The Eurosport internet live stream is subject to a charge.
