While the 2017 Tour de France started with a time trial, the 105th edition begins with a road race. Despite its first half rolling along the seaside, which makes the wind a potential factor in the development of the competition, the profile is predominantly flat and thus it’s quite likely that a sprinter will triumph at Fontenay-le-Comte. This already happened in 2013 at Bastia and the year after in the British town of Harrogate, both to the benefit of Marcel Kittel, as well as in 2016 at Utah-Beach-Saint-Marie-du-Mont, which saw one of the many victories by Mark Cavendish. ‘Cav’, nowadays racing for Team Dimension Data, is indeed the most prolific winner of the current field, with 30 stage wins on his result sheet. Marcel Kittel (14, Katusha-Alpecin), André Greipel (11, Lotto-Soudal) and Peter Sagan (8, Bora-Hangsrohe) follow him on the standings. Among their challengers, two fast men opened their victory account at this race last year, Arnaud Démare (Groupama-FDJ) and Dylan Groenewegen (LottoNL-Jumbo). There is also an Aussie in the mix, Michael Matthews (Sunweb), himself a winner of three stages in the last two editions of the Grande Boucle, and Norway’s Alexandre Kristoff (Team UAE Emirates) who claimed two bouquets in 2014. The list of contenders also features Christophe Laporte (Cofidis), John Degenkolb (Trek-Segafredo), Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain-Merida) and Magnus Cort Nielsen (Astana). But, if there is one new name to single out, that’s Fernando Gaviria (Quick Step Floors). Winner of four stages at the 2017 Giro d’Italia, he debuts on the Tour de France and admits feeling “nervous” about it. “How couldn’t I be nervous, surrounded by the best sprinters in the world, all of them chasing the yellow jersey like I ought to do?” Quite a challenge for the Colombian, as only one fellow countryman has worn the leader shirt of the Tour de France: it was Victor Hugo Peña, back in 2003. Now a sprinter can end this 15-year drought for a nation famous for its climbers…
