Cautarés (France) If the existence of the Tourmalet is well known, it is because of the Tour de France. Great names in the history of cycling have crowned the summit in first position, such as Eddy Mercks, Fausto Coppi, Bernard Thevenet or Claudio Chiapucchi, the Italian cyclist who wore the white jersey with red dots as the leader of the mountain in the 90s while trying to win Miguel Indurain a Tour that never came. The Tourmalet is an iconic port that captures the viewer as a result of the free inheritance that reaches families from generation to generation during the tables of the month of July. If you also have a road bike, any excuse is good to propose a route through the Pyrenees and for the Tourmalet to be part of the travel book.
It is the port that has been climbed the most times in the history of the Tour de France since it was part of the map of the French Tour for the first time in 1910, and that is why it is part of the collective imagination thanks to the exhibitions of the cyclists and the atmosphere of the public who want to experience it live and who stay up at night to avoid their access being cut off. The last time the Tourmalet hosted a stage finale was in 2019, when Majorcan Enric Mas was fourth overall, the mythical peak was crossed and he lost all chance of getting on the podium. The French public went crazy with the triumph of their country’s cyclist, Thibaut Pinaut. The stage then left Tarba, just like the sixth day of the Tour this year.
The Tourmalet, considered out of the category due to its hardness, will arrive halfway through the day with 17 kilometers of ascent from Sainte Marie de Campan and will already cause your legs to start to itch. “It’s very hard. The climb from Sainte Marie de Campan up the slope of La Mongie as the cyclists will do has a last six kilometers in which it is very hot, with the finish at more than 2,000 meters of altitude,” ex-cyclist Dan Martin explains to the NOW.
The hardness of the Tourmalet
The ex-climber, with two stage victories in the Tour de France and Irish nationality, retired at the end of 2021, has stayed to live in Andorra and during the French competition he experiences the race from the inside. “The Tourmalet is a very open port. With an average slope of 10%. It’s a climb where every year a strong rider explodes”, remembers Martin, who still maintains the body of a cyclist.
In 2019 it was Enric Mas, who was hit by the mountain, which has limited access to avoid the over-accumulation of spectators when the cyclists pass through the Tourmalet this Thursday. “It is not the main stage of the Tour, but it will be one of the main days of the race”, adds Dan Martin. And more so considering that the double winner of the Tour, Tadej Pogacar, has lost his piston on the first mountain day in the Pyrenees and has lost more than a minute to his main rival, the Danish Jonas Vingegaard.
The Catalan cyclist David de la Cruz will also climb the Tourmalet. After arriving in Laruns, where he finished a fifth day with victory and led by Jay Hindley, the cyclist from Sabadell remembers for this newspaper how a port of this dimension is experienced in cycling today. “All ports determine their hardness based on the speed at which you climb. Here at the Tour de France the pace is very high, so it will be very hard. Honestly, I hope I can be on the run when the Tourmalet goes up, it will be a sign that I have good legs”, says De la Cruz. The Tourmalet, a climb as tough as it is iconic.
2023-07-06 10:00:37
#Tourmalet #port #year #runner #explodes
