The first mountain stage of 2024 Tour de France
With Richard Carapaz in yellow the peloton will pass Sestriere which in 1999 was the coming out party of the newborn climbing legs of Tour giant Lance Armstrong.
After Sestriere, the peloton will climb the “easier” side of Col de Galibier which can be quite windy and take the will of attackers such as Tadej Pogacar or others, as headwind will slow them down
Stage 4 predicitions:
Breakaway stage winnerRomain Bardet will be in breakaway (Try to get back the yellow jersey)Jonas Abrahamsen will be in breakaway (for green and polka dot jersey points)To much headwind on Galibier for Pogacar/Jonas attackTom Pidcock will go for victory by his downhill abilities
UAE and Visma does not want to take on the yellow jersey before stage 14 which is why Pogacar intentionally let Richard Carapaz get yellow on stage 3. It is simply to much work for no reason to be in yellow this early in the Tour, due to the amount of flat and semi-flat stages between now and stage 14.
For this reason my belief is that Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard will not be the attackers of visit to Galibier. However, Primoz Rogliz, Remco Evenepoel and maybe even Richard Carapaz might have other ideas.
Even if a group of GC favorites end together in a sprint I do not believe Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard will go for the victory due to the positional risk of getting the yellow jersey (Carapaz, Evenepoel, Pogacar and Jonas is all inside of 0′ seconds). The jersey as we saw yesterday will shift due to best positions over all stages.
My stage 4 favorites:
Remco EvenepoelPrimoz RoglizTom Pidcock (Will attack so he is alone on downhill)Romain BardetMatej Mohoric (Breakaway or if he isn’t dropped on Galibier)Carlos Rodriquez (Attacked Pogi&Jonas last year and won on a downhill)
Who do you believe will win the stage today? Will Carapaz stay in yellow?
I’m out
Morten
