Stage 4 Breakdown:

Stage 4 take the riders across the border and into France, on a mountainous 139km trip from Pinerolo to Valloire. Today is the first proper mountain stage of the tour, with two 2nd category climbs and one HC category climb up the iconic Col du Galibier. The stage maintains a constant climb throughout the day, only disrupted by a few downhill segments. It will be a long day for the riders without any flat areas to regain their breath.

The final climb up Col du Galibier is 23km long with an average gradient of 5.1%. The summit is located at an elevation of 2642m and was first used by Tour de France in 1911. Its a very long climb but not particularly steep, meaning that it will be hard for any GC rider to create a gap without grinding his opponents first. Will any team take the gamble and set a high pace early on? After reaching the summit, the riders has about 19km of downhill to the finish in Valloire.

This will be the first real battle among the GC riders, and it is expected that Pogacar will be interested to test out the form of Vingegaard, who has been recovering from his fall a couple months ago. If the GC riders decide to set the pace, it will likely be hard for any breakaway to maintain a gap in the final climb. It should be an interesting stage to watch!

Favorites:
| +++ | Tadej Pogacar, Remco Evenepoel, Jonas Vingegaard
| ++ | Tom Pidcock, Primoz Roglic, Pello Bilbao
| + | Giulio Ciccone, Derek Gee, Tobias Johannessen

TourManager:
Etappe 4 tar rytterene for første gang over grensen og inn i Frankrike. Årets første harde fjelletappe står for tur, inkludert det ikoniske fjellet Col du Galibier. Det er jevn klatring hele dagen avbrutt av et par nedoverbakker, så det vil bli en slitsom dag for rytterne. Det er mange klatrepoeng som skal deles ut på dagens etappe, så følg med på dem som kjemper om klatretrøyen, ettersom de trolig vil være veldig interessert i et brudd. Den siste HC bakken kan fort bli for hard for et brudd dersom hovedfeltet med sammenlagtrytterne begynner å kjøre, så GC rytterne er favoritter til etappeseieren.

Noen utvalgte rytterne fra forskjellige kategorier som kan vurderes til en slik fjelletappe:
– Tadej Pogacar (Kaptein)
– Tom Pidcock (Ungdomsrytter)
– Giulio Ciccone (Klatrer)
– Wout van Aert (Spurter)
– Abrahamsen (Hjelper)
– Tobias Johannesen (Ungdomsrytter)

Tune in for more stage by stage analysis, and predictions to come!