First mountain stage on Pinot’s territory

This is the fourth finish atop La Planche des Belles Filles in eight years. It was the venue of Chris Froome’s first ever Tour de France stage win in 2012. Vincenzo Nibali was first in the ski resort of the Haute-Saône in the massif of the Vosges in 2014 and Fabio Aru won up there in 2017. It was already a very steep finale but it’ll be even steeper, longer and harder this time with one more kilometre to climb. It makes it a 7-km long hill at 8.7% and final ramps at 20%. This is Thibaut Pinot’s territory. The Groupama-FDJ leader will race on home soil. He knows how difficult the previous climbs are too: Markstein and Ballon d’Alsace are first category hills and the col des Chevrères just before La Planche is a very hard one too. Julian Alaphilippe is aware of the huge tasks he’ll face in the defence of the yellow jersey against the GC contenders but also the attackers from far out who haven’t had the scenario they wanted on stage 5.