Stage 7: Tomblaine to La Super Planche des Belles Filles
Date: July 8, 2022
Distance: 176.3km
Stage timing: 13:05 – 17:15 CEST
Stage type: Mountain
The Tour de France hasn’t visited La Planche des Belles Filles since Tadej Pogačar crowned himself the champion of the race with a stunning come-from-behind victory in the penultimate stage time trial two years ago.
On Friday, the race revisits the climb, a relatively new addition to le Tour’s stable of reliable, oft-used mountains, for the sixth time since Chris Froome kicked to victory as Sky teammate Bradley Wiggins ascended to yellow back in 2012.
Despite its status as a barely established fixture in the long history of the Tour, the climb itself – whether it’s a time trial finisher, the tarmac version, or ‘Super Planche’ – has been a prognosticator of the overall winner far more often than not.
First there was Wiggins, who didn’t concede yellow thereafter, then Nibali during his dominant Tour of 2014. Three years later it heralded the fourth of Froome’s victories, and then, following the 2019 debut of Super Planche, came Pogačar’s last-gasp stunner.
Since the climb’s introduction to the race a decade ago, it has served as a taster for the major mountain challenges of the Alps and Pyrenees yet to come, the Vosges climb itself never an outright decider despite the reputation it has gained.
Come Friday, that’s set to be the case once more, though even at this early stage few would put their necks on the line and bet against race leader Pogačar eventually sealing another overall victory in two weeks’ time.
The Slovenian heads into the stage having proved himself the strongest of the GC contenders on three different terrains without having climbed anything harder than a third-category climb. He’s taken time on his rivals in the Copenhagen time trial, on the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix, and now on the hills of the southern Ardennes.
Perhaps the biggest question posed about this year’s stage is whether he will show his strength and impose his will on the race once more, or whether – as the GC men did on the debut of Super Planche in 2019 – the spoils will be…
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