PREVIEW | Tour de France 2023 stage 14 - 9 seconds separate Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard into brutal multiple-climb stage

Preview. Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar find another crucial day at the Tour de France on stage 14, a day of constant climbing which could be deadly for the overall classification after a brutal race it's been so far.

Stage 14 of the Tour de France will be one of the hardest stages of the race, featuring four ascents early in the day where the race will stabilize. It is another short stage, but one where differences can be made. The start of the stage features three categorized climbs with 4.4Km at 4.6%, 7.1Km at 7.4% and 5.9Km at 7.7%. The intermediate sprint is then also atop the Col de Jambaz which is 6.5Km at 3.8%. A proper day of constant up and down.

Estimated start and finish times for Tour de France stage 14: 13:05-17:20CET

The Col de la Ramaz (13.9 kilometers; 7.1%) will be a warm-up to the final climb of the day. It's a really tough one, not as constant as the final one but it features harsher gradients in some phases. This climb will summit with 50.5 kilometers to go, the descent that follows is steep. Then come almost exactly 10 kilometers before the final ascent of the day.

This will be the Col de Joux Plane (11.6 kilometers; 8.5%), before a descent into Morzine. This is a traditional Tour finale, one that frequently sees no differences between the favourites, but the stage provides the opportunity to create them. The climb is quite constant, it's steep and comes at the end of a hard mountain day. It has everything in theory to make big things out of it.

There is a small plateau section before the descent, which will be rather steep and technical, another tense challenge before the final kilometer inside Morzine, where the finale will be narrow and on some slight uphill gradients.

The Weather

The weather changes. Whereas the race has been controlled by the heat, tomorrow the weather will look different. Grey and threatening skies, there is risk of rain however it's not too high, but the wind will blow quite strongly. A tailwind in the early climbs of the day and Ramaz, in Joux Plane there'll be plenty direction changes but the final kilometers have a cross-tailwind which should not hamper attacks certainly. If it does rain the final descent will be quite sketchy.

The Favourites

Tadej Pogacar - The gap is now only of nine seconds. UAE have buried themselves today, using all riders to gain in the end eight seconds. It's something, specially when wearing yellow at this point in the race seems to be important. The team couldn't bring it back for the stage win however, tomorrow it'll be impossible to control the stage in the same way. But in the end it's the direct confrontation, will he manage to take time on Vingegaard? Surely he will attack, he spent over half the race so far doing it, but this day I reckon will suit the Dane better.

Jonas Vingegaard - Jumbo is now racing defensively. I had argued it's what they had to do, they also understand it's the best strategy. Van Aert was saved today, a few riders can get in the breakaway to be of support later on in the day. Nothing to note on Kuss who continues to be strong in the climbs, Vingegaard just has to follow the wheel of Pogacar. It can be tricky in the final descent. At this point in the race yellow hangs by a thread, 9 seconds is nothing, Vingegaard knows it's all about following Pogacar directly and he just has to hope for the Slovenian to not have the same legs of the last three summit finishes.

Top 10 Fight - No dramatic changes. Again, the race will be made by the top two teams, the rest follows. Jai Hindley remains solid in third place, teams know they must count on consistency to significantly move up the GC now, unless they manage to join a successful breakaway. This is however where tomorrow can be interesting, the start is explosive and if the fight for the breakaway takes long enough, the group can go off in Col de Cou. Serious climbers can infiltrate the break here, including GC contenders. Thibaut Pinot and Romain Bardet the Frenchmen are just outside the Top10 and are exactly the kind of riders to risk it all here. But many that follow should try and do the same to try and hop into a valuable position in the GC. Louis Meintjes, Felix Gall, Guillaume Martin, Mikel Landa and Emanuel Buchmann all try to resist in the GC and have here an opportunity to move up.

And I won't lie, i this list there are riders well capable of winning the stage, shown as recently as this afternoon in Grand Colombier, some kept up with the GC favourites almost all the way to the line. However others have been saving themselves, focusing on specific days and could strike here. In recent finales the GC riders were conservative on his finish into Morzine - perhaps because of the descent - they can also benefit from that.

This time around the hard start will mean a condensed group with plenty quality, little or no "passengers" who won't be able to fight for the stage win. A lot of climbing quality resides outside of the GC favourites. Take the KOM fight for example, Michal Kwiatkowski significantly moved up with today's win and may now aim for that jersey, currently owned by Neilson Powless. Tobias Johannessen, Ruben Guerreiro, Giulio Ciccone, Michael Woods and Daniel Martínez are riders who not only seek a stage win (or another, in the case of Woods), but also Polka Dots.

Add into the mix Jonathan Castroviejo, Esteban Chaves, Jack Haig, Ben O'Connor, Mattias Skjelmose, Ion Izagirre, Antonio Pedrero and Chris Harper and we've got a belter of a day no doubt. A climber fest in the first day of pure Alpine racing, after 13 days of brilliant racing we have great reasons to be excited for what's to come.

Prediction Tour de France 2023 stage 14:

*** Tadej Pogacar, Felix Gall, Giulio Ciccone
** Jonas Vingegaard, Michael Woods, Esteban Chaves
* Tom Pidcock, Jai Hindley, Adam Yates, Louis Meintjes, Michal Kwiatkowski, Tobias Johannessen, Ruben Guerreiro, Ben O'Connor, Ion Izagirre, Mattias Skjelmose

Pick: Giulio Ciccone