Stage 12 | Thursday, 11 July | Aurillac - Villeneuve-sur-Lot | 203.6 kilometres | 2200 vertical metres
Rolf Aldag's assessment of the 12th stage: All eyes on the finale
The stage is divided into a rather hilly start and middle section and a very flat finale, which is varied in terms of scenery, but very predictable in terms of racing. The race starts in the Cantal mountains, which will certainly help the day's breakaway riders to form a group. Maybe they've looked it up and seen that 24 years ago the Dutch classics specialist Erik Dekker triumphed in a solo effort at today's finish. However, I don't see any chance for the breakaway to win the stage today. At the latest after the peloton has wound its way out of the mountains along the small river Theze, the work of leading back will begin.
None of the serious sprint candidates will suffer on the Cote du Rocamadour, where two years ago Jonas Vingegaard secured his triumph in yellow in the individual time trial on stage 20. I assume that the sprinter teams will simply pull their protégés up the mountains at a reduced speed and then pick up the pace downhill. Even the slight climb of around two per cent in the last ten kilometres before the finish is no test for these guys, they'll all roll over it at 60 km/h. That's why I see a bunch sprint here.
Schedule, TV coverage & live stream of the 12th stage of the Tour de France 2024
- Neutral start: 12:35, sharp start 12:50
- Estimated arrival time: between 17:16 and 17:41
- TV broadcast: ARD 14:10 - 17:35, 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 12th 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.
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