Step 1
Lille Métropole - Lille Metropole
Departure on July 5 at 1.10pm, scheduled arrival at 5.36pm
This will be the perfect opportunity for the sprinters to take the first Yellow Jersey. Three climbs, first in Artois at Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, shortly after crossing Lens, then in Flanders with the cobbled Cassel climb and the Mont Noir, some forty kilometers from the finish, will have created a great battle for the best climber's jersey. But at the end of this loop around Lille, where vigilance will be called for in the face of a possible side wind that could lead to breakages, victory should be decided between the fastest riders in the peloton, at the foot of the citadel and at the end of a wide, perfectly flat one-kilometre straight.
Distance
185KM
185KM
Focus on the stage
Alexander Kristoff was the last pure sprinter to wear yellow after the first stage of the 2020 Grand Départ in Nice. He should have a successor in Lille at the end of the loop which will first take the peloton to visit the Pas-de-Calais.
Back in the North, the sprinters' formations should leave little chance for the breakaways, who will have to concentrate on the challenge for the polka-dot jersey on the climbs of Cassel at km 106 and Mont Noir at km 139.7. On the final straight at the foot of the Citadelle, the sprinters will take center stage.
