PREVIEW | Tour de France 2024 stage 17 - Will 10% climb see another nuclear battle between Pogacar and Vingegaard?

The riders will not have a single more flat stage in this Tour de France. It's nothing but climbs and hills now all the way to the finish in Nice. We preview stage 17, a day where the breakaway can fight for victory and at the same time, we may see another battle between Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard.

A mixed day. It is one where the breakaway should succeed but the start is completely flat. The GC riders could be called for action in the hilltop finish to Superdévoluy, which comes after the explosive Col du Noyer (7.8Km at 7.9%).

It's a mixed day, an interesting one actually, breaking the traditional format of the Tour. The next day should be for a breakaway or sprint, and so the GC riders won't necessarily save themselves. The climbs are more explosive which provides a different challenge, but they are still hard enough to make differences. With the completely flat stage start - and mostly flat two first thirds of the stage - there is a serious chance that the main climbers will fight for the win, bonifications and look to put their rivals into difficulties.

The Col du Bauard opens things up, 6.9 kilometers at 7% which ends with 32 kilometers to go. But all eyes will be on the first-category ascent to the Col du Noyer. At the end of a relatively easy day, we can see some serious wattages on this climb. It slowly rises in gradient all the way to the summit and it ends with only 11.5 kilometers to go. It goes above 10% towards the end, this can make bigger differences even than some high mountain stages because it will not be all about pacing.

But the stage does not ends in it's summit in fact. A very fast descent leads the riders into the final hilltop at Superdevoluy. The ascent is 3.9 kilometers long at 5.7%, it will not be enough to create meaningful differences, but it can lead to an interesting fight for the stage win for sure.

Strong northern wind may make for a very nervous start with some cross-tailwinds, but this quiets down as the riders head into the mountains. The decisive phase of the stage will have regular weather and no palpable wind.

GC Fight - Will we have one? Before the race began I looked at the profiles and I thought the chances are low, because most riders will be thinking of the final three days and will want to save up as much as possible, and this is the "easiest" of the four remaining mountain stages left (including the time-trial). But there are reasons why this may not be the case, well one reason only actually.

On the racing conservative side you can argue that Tadej Pogacar has no reason to attack, and he may want to be conservative to make sure he minimizes the chances of blowing up later in the week... And on the other you have the fact that INEOS, Lidl, Israel, Bahrain and Decathlon... None of them have a team to control the stage and really destroy the peloton on the climbs. The only non-UAE/Visma team that does is Quick-Step but Remco Evenepoel has no interest in attacking. Mikel Landa and Carlos Rodríguez will likely want to attack João Almeida, Santiago Buitrago and Felix Gall will want to take time on Giulio Ciccone and Derek Gee in the Top10 fight... This may cause some skirmishes, but likely they ride the wheels of the big teams.

But Visma does have a vested interest in attacking the race. Controlling the stage, not so much, but if they want to win the Tour de France - regardless of how difficult it is - they have to try and at least test Pogacar here, you never know when he may have a bad day. But more than that, I think Visma's last tactic to try and win this race is to make this stage very hard, and then do it again on stage 19... And then again on stage 20... And just hope that the fatigue built up is very high and possibly beneficial for Jonas Vingegaard. The Col du Noyer is hard enough for differences to be made and I do expect Vingegaard to at least try. Whether he will be successful is a different question.

Realistically though, I believe the victory lies in the breakaway. The start is completely flat, which does not favour this possibility and will make it quite hard for a few riders to find themselves in front... But there isn't any team that realistically wants or has to chase it down - unless someone dangerous gets in the front group, as has happened in this race. Thus the main favourites for the day likely lie outside of the GC contenders, but within the strongest climbers.

EF have been on a roll, they would've likely already won several stages if breakaways had freedom but this time around that could very well happen. Richard Carapaz has proven to be in great form and on terrain like this he can absolutely make the difference... But Ben Healy is also having a fantastic Tour and is in tremendous form, climbing better than ever, and I believe he fully has the legs to win such a stage. BORA has numbers with Jai Hindley and Bob Jungels and good contenders; Movistar has Enric Mas who has finally showed form on stage 15 but also Oier Lazkano who can be dangerous with an early attack; and also DSM who have Romain Bardet and Oscar Onley who can realistically fight for a stage win here on a good day.

Other very strong climbers such as Simon Yates, Guillaume Martin, David Gaudu and Tobias Johannessen have to take their chance here if they want to leave this race with something to show for; whilst we have riders on the rise in terms of form such as Laurens de Plus, Carlos Verona and Louis Meintjes who can also win on Super-Devoluy. I add as further outsiders men like Ilan van Wilder, Stephen Williams and Kévin Vauquelin.

*** Richard Carapaz, Ben Healy
** Tadej Pogacar, Simon Yates, Laurens de Plus
* Jonas Vingegaard, Remco Evenepoel, Carlos Verona, Jai Hindley, David Gaudu, Stephen Williams, Guillaume Martin, Enric Mas, Louis Meintjes, Tobias Johanessen

Pick: Ben Healy