Stage 18 | Thursday, 18 July | Gap - Barcelonnette | 179.5 kilometres | 3100 vertical metres
Rolf Aldag's assessment of the 18th stage: It's now or never
So far, the Tour de France has not exactly been built for solo riders. Today, however, the breakaways once again have the chance to shape the race. This stage is very long, which significantly reduces the incentive for many teams to keep them under control. This means that from the very first climb, the almost 14 kilometre-long Col du Festre, it is possible to gain a considerable lead over the favourites. With three third-category climbs in the 85 kilometres before the finish, there will also be plenty of situations in which the riders at the front of the race will attack each other. This should be very entertaining, as nothing will be given away.
The approach to the finish is also interesting. Although you can't call it a mountain finish, it is a constant uphill until shortly before the finish in Barcelonnette. Over the last 25 kilometres, that's around 300 metres. There is one - albeit very unlikely - constellation in which this section could become particularly important for sprinters. Should there be an open battle for the green jersey, today's profile could provoke a race to the finish. There are sprinters and teams who can cope much better than others with the 3000 metres of altitude and the ups and downs here in the Alps. A "false flat" like the approach to today's finish could offer the chance to land a final blow in the points classification.
Schedule, TV coverage & live stream of the 18th stage of the Tour de France 2024
- Neutral start: 13:00, sharp start 13:20
- Estimated arrival time: between 17:30 and 17:56
- TV broadcast: ARD 14:10 - 17:55, Eurosport 1 12:30 - 18:00
- 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 18th 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 the respective stage for which 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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