Both Primoz Roglic and Tadej Pogacar who occupy the first two places of the overall classification spoke about stage 17 as the queen stage of this year’s Tour de France. They’ve recced the unprecedented uphill to col de la Loze. After the lockdown period, the Jumbo-Visma team made Tignes their permanent training camp, so it wasn’t far for Roglic to go to col de la Loze several times. It’s a fairly new road. It’s actually a ski slope that has been recently asphalted for mountain bikes to go from Méribel to Courchevel and vice versa. One year ago, young Australian Alexander Evans, now riding for Circus-Wanty Gobert, won stage 8 of the Tour de l’Avenir from Brides-les-Bains to Méribel/Col de la Loze. It’s extremely steep! The last five kilometres promise a fierce battle between Roglic and Pogacar. Stage hunters will have the gruelling climb to col de la Madeleine to make a difference before “the crazy hard finale”, as Roglic described it yesterday after stage 16.
