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Pauillac
51 km
Saturday 24 July
If the 8 kilometre prologue was the starter, the only major time-trial in this year’s race is the dessert: a 51 kilometre long time-trial on undulating Medoc roads, at the heart of the celebrated vineyards that produce such quality Bordeaux vintages, and a finish line in Pauillac, a new stage town. Manifestly, the scene of an ultimate and decisive struggle for the Yellow Jersey.
• 79 times a stage town
• Population: 236,000
• Capital of the Aquitaine Region and Prefecture of Gironde (33)
The record man of stage victories in the Gironde city remains, here as elsewhere, Eddy Merckx, who won there four times, and three of these wins were time-trials. Indeed, the Prefecture of Gironde hosted no less than six time-trials in the 1970s, allowing speed racers to dominate sprinters. The last individual time trial that was launched from Bordeaux revealed Jan Ullirich in 1996, in Saint-Émilion.
• Stage town for the first time
• Population: 5,200
• County town of Gironde canton (33)
A vintage edition of the Tour is guaranteed this year with the selection of Pauillac, an excellent choice and one of the Médoc’s most prestigious quality labels of origin. Hence, the 2010 edition upholds the tradition of hosting major time-trials among the vineyards, after Santenay in 1988, Saint-Émilion in 1996 and Mâcon in 2002, to name but a few… Pauillac, also famous for its lamb and its magnificent view over the River Gironde, is the twelfth town in Gironde to welcome the Tour and the second in Médoc after Lacanau in 1976.
