Tour de France 2023 - 15th stage | Sunday, 16 July | Lets Gets les Portes du Soleil - Saint-Gervais Mont-Blanc | 179 kilometres
Rolf Aldag's assessment of the 15th stage of the 2023 Tour de France: Chaos on the final climb?
I'm torn between the two. On the one hand, my first glance at the stage would suggest that today was a breakaway day. The fact that the classification has - or should have - organised itself over the past few days speaks in favour of this.
At the latest at the Col de la Croix Fry, around 55 kilometres before the finish, breakaways could have so much of a lead that they will no longer be tackled by the teams of classification riders. But that doesn't mean that the stage has been written off for the overall classification. On the other hand, when I look at the final passage, I can also assume that the favourites will battle it out. After the descent into the village of Domancy, the route turns right along a narrow road towards the finish at the mountain top. I can already imagine what it will look like filmed from a helicopter. The captains and their noble helpers will throw themselves into a 12.9 per cent steep kilometre and manoeuvre past colleagues who almost come to a standstill on the left and right.
This race situation is likely to be quite chaotic. However, it is not the case that an attack between the top riders would be expedient here. The route to the finish offers too much opportunity for recovery. It's not until the very top that seconds are at stake again.
Schedule, TV coverage & live stream of the 15th stage of the Tour de France 2023
- Neutral start: 13:05, sharp start 13:20
- Estimated arrival time: between 18:00 and 18:36
- TV broadcast: ARD - from 15:30, Eurosport - from 13:00
- Live stream: ARD one, sportschau.de, GCN+, Discovery+, Eurosport
Our expert Rolf Aldag
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 will once again be in charge of the German team Bora-Hansgrohe as sporting director at the Tour de France this year. There are few people who can tell so vividly what can happen on the stages of a grand tour and within the peloton. For TOUR, the 54-year-old sports manager has once again scrutinised the elevation profiles and march tables of 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 difficulties of the routes and says where he expects attacks 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: The more coloured jerseys our expert assigns to a stage, the greater their significance for the respective classification. The yellow jersey symbolises the weight of the 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. With these first-hand predictions, you can follow the TV broadcasts well informed and with profit!
