Mâcon – Dijon 163.5 km
A thoroughly flat sprint stage to keep the sprint-hype up after yesterday’s history-making climax. There is a slight tease of the possibilities of crosswinds but likely the winds are just a bit too lazy to have an impact. We can still dream though.
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Estimated finish time: 17:20-17:40 CEST
Cutting the mustard: Jasper Philipsen
Clearly the Alpecin leadout hasn’t been firing on all cylinders yet and maybe Jasper isn’t quite either? You get the sense that last year Van der Poel would have more than the briefest of bursts in him when it was his turn to launch Philipsen and also Jasper would have had that last extra power to come around Cav on the line. But that was then and this is now. I still think they are close enough that they will pull it off sooner than later though.