Stage 20 of the Tour de France Brings the Final Race Against the Clock
Stage 20 - Libourne to Saint-Émilion - 30.8km - Saturday, July 17
This year’s Tour de France features more time trial kilometers than recent editions. And in a departure from last year’s race, they’re friendlier to the pure specialists of the discipline.
The gently rolling 30.8km course is perfect for the big rouleurs looking to add a Tour stage to their list of wins. It’s got a few corners to keep riders honest, but isn’t overly technical. The primary challenge will be pacing. The course has no significant hills, but after a flat start, it starts a long false-flat grind with some gentle undulations to the second intermediate time check, at 20.1km.
Stage-by-Stage Recaps of the Tour de France
From there, a short, straightforward section of slight downhill leads to a final 7km of false flat again to the finish in Saint-Émilion. We’d expect the section from the second time check to the finish to be the most crucial for stage-win hopefuls.
Time trials often reward a so-called “negative split” where the strategy is to try to ride faster in the second half of the course than the first. With fatigue setting in here, it’s here that riders who were disciplined with pacing will start to raise their average speed. They won’t have much to deal with weather-wise, but the forecast does call for moderate crosswinds out of the north. Because the course essentially doubles back on itself in the middle part, they’ll face crosswinds from both sides, but the final 5km will be mostly a tailwind.
Riders to Watch
This will be a fight between the specialists and two of the top GC riders. That’s for the stage win, at least. There are only a few possible position changes in the top 10, and likely none for the podium.
As far as the GC goes: yellow jersey Tadej Pogačar (UAE-Emirates) won the opening TT on a flatter course on Stage 5, while Jumbo-Visma’s Jonas Vingegaard, in second overall, was third on the day. Pogačar has a commanding overall lead of almost six minutes; barring some unexpected disaster, even if he dials it back a bit (which we don’t expect), his lead will be safe.
And while Vingegaard is only six seconds clear of Richard Carapaz (Ineos Grenadiers,) he’s a substantially better time triallist and put over a minute into Carapaz in Stage 5. For his purposes, Carapaz is comfortably ahead of fourth-place rider Ben O’Connor (Ag2r-Citroen), 2:27 behind. There could be a fight for fourth between O’Connor and Bora-Hansgrohe’s Wilco Kelderman, who is 32 seconds further back. They were pretty evenly matched on Stage 5. And Alexey Lutsenko (Astana) could possibly (just) overhaul Movistar’s Enric Mas for sixth place.
Aside from Pogačar and Vingegaard as stage threats, this will be a day for the TT specialists. That means Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ), narrowly beaten by Pogačar on Stage 5; Deceuninck-Quick Step’s Kasper Asgreen; and Jumbo-Visma’s Wout van Aert. Look for good rides from EF Education-Nippo’s Magnus Cort and Stefan Bisseger and DQS’s Mattia Cattaneo. Ineos’s Richie Porte and Geraint Thomas could try to salvage stage wins from an uncharacteristically quiet Tour for the team, but the best threats to win are Pogačar, Küng, Asgreen, and van Aert.
When to Watch
In time trials, riders start in reverse order of the overall classification, with the yellow jersey going last. That spreads the action out considerably. The first rider off the line, Tim Declercq, will start a little after 7 a.m. Eastern, while Pogačar isn’t scheduled to get rolling until 11:19 a.m.
Around 9 a.m., you’ll see a group of potential contenders starting with Asgreen; Cort, Küng, Thomas, and Porte all start in the next half hour; you’ll also catch the finish for American Brandon McNulty, a strong time triallist.
Then there’s a break before the final quartet of likely winners starts with van Aert, 19th overall, at 10:43, followed by Cattaneo and then the top GC riders. If you want to nerd out on TTs, 9 a.m. is a good time to tune in for the Asgreen group. If you wish to check the standings and see the GC riders duke it out, tuning it at 11 a.m. will give you plenty of action before Pogačar’s expected finish time just before noon.
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