>> To the race report of the 17th stage

Stage 17 | Wednesday, 17 July | Saint-Paul-Trois-Chateaux - Superdevoluy | 177.8 kilometres | 2850 vertical metres

Rolf Aldag's assessment of the 17th stage: The time to take risks

Before the final lap around Nice, the next four stages will be a very mountainous and demanding programme. The race starts east of the Rhone in the Drome department and thus almost back in the Alps, whose foothills will characterise the race today. The peloton will work its way up throughout the day, gently at first, then with a very sporty finale in the Hautes-Alpes department. Looking at this profile, I see a very good prospect for breakaways to successfully steal away and fight for the stage win. Now, this late in the 2024 Tour de France, there are more and more candidates who can reach this level for one day and would otherwise have to cope with a disappointing stage race. Nevertheless, this is no walk in the park for those at the front of the classification.

For example, if someone like Tadej Pogacar is behind in the overall standings, he should attack on the Col du Noyer. At some point you have to take risks. The climb is almost eight per cent steep on average, followed by a rapid descent with a number of very tight bends, before it's another four kilometres up to the finish in a ski resort. Depending on the overall situation of the Tour de France 2024, this is a race situation in which a technically outstanding downhill rider will be pushing hard over the mountain and risking everything on the descent to Devoluy to jeopardise the yellow jersey once again.

>> TOUR Tech-Briefing for the 17th stage

Schedule, TV coverage & live stream of the 17th stage of the Tour de France 2024

• Neutral start: 12:35 pm, sharp start 12:45 pm
• Estimated arrival time: between 16:58 and 17:26
• TV broadcast: ARD 14:10 - 17:20, Eurosport 1 12:00 - 17:30
• 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 17th 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 focussed exclusively on this year's tour for TOUR readers.

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 each stage for the 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.

Further stage previews for the Tour de France 2024

• Stage 1
• Stage 2
• 3rd stage
• Stage 4
• Stage 5
• Stage 6
• Stage 7
• Stage 8
• 9th stage
• Stage 10
• Stage 11
• Stage 12
• 13th stage
• 14th stage
• 15th stage
• 16th stage
• 18th stage
• 19th stage
• Stage 20
• 21st stage

TOUR at the Tour de France: Exclusive live blog