PREVIEW | Tour de la Provence 2025 - Lidl-Trek chasing win with Pedersen and Skujins
Cycling
From the 14th of the 16th of February the racing in France continues with another prestigious stage-race. In the south of the country, the Tour de la Provence will provide good opportunities for the sprinters and classics riders to work on their form and fight for stage wins. We preview the race ahead.
The first day of the race is coincidentally the hardest and one that is very difficult to control. The riders begin to tackle climbs right from kilometer 0 and until the finish it's a constant roller-coaster of a day.
There will be 2600 meters of climbing and the first half of the stage mainly is very hard. Without a race leader at the same time, it is expected that there will be a big fight to be in the breakaway and this will include some of the strongest riders in the race. This is because there will be a downhill trend to the final half of the day, with several small climbs... Putting on a chase will be hard and bringing back attackers will be a very difficult task.
Stage 2 of the race is perhaps more controlled, but also not an easy day by any means. The sprinters should have the spotlight, but they will need good climbing legs to win on the day. The 167-kilometer stage features a few small climbs towards the end that provide opportunities for attacks and changes in the overall classification.
However, if there are good sprinters with good legs on the day, there should be teams with enough interest to sacrifice plenty riders for a chase, before the finale into Manosque. It will be a tricky uphill sprint, averaging 4% in the final kilometer, which could see some puncheurs also getting in the mix - with both stage and GC interests.
The final day of the race is the easiest and the one where a bunch sprint seems inevitable. The race rewards the pure sprinters with a golden opportunity on the final day. At the end of the 190 kilometers, the sprinters will battle on as the race finishes in Arles.
Prediction Tour de la Provence 2025 overall classification:
*** Mads Pedersen, Toms Skujins
** Matej Mohoric, Marijn van den Berg
* Bauke Molema, Fred Wright, Dorian Godon, Samuele Battistella, Ewen Costiou
Pick: Mads Pedersen
Original: Rúben Silva
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- That made me smile Suipedali. Nice one!Cyclingsbestfan14-03-2025
- Even if Pogi has 5s on top of Poggio, he's getting caught on descent unfortunately. And it's extremely unlikely that he will have morevappaxbipmv14-03-2025
- If Pogi can drop him, then he will winabstractengineer14-03-2025
- In that sense, those two have less in common than the link you could make between demonstrators, right handers, Hinault and Merckx.Mistermaumau14-03-2025
- "He apparently thought it was completely fine." Nothing broken and no concussion, that's as completely fine as it gets in cyclingvappaxbipmv14-03-2025
- Better safe than sorry. At least his injuries are a lot less severe than they were last year.
santiagobenites14-03-2025 - Well spotted :-)Mistermaumau14-03-2025
- One thing Jonas Vingegaard has in common with Hinault is that they are moaners, although I couldn't see Jonas giving a demonstrator a right hander!Suipedali14-03-2025
- They are surprisingly rare on the pro circuit, around our area, one in four races finishes of with a really steep 500m climb at the end.Mistermaumau14-03-2025
- Give him an uphill sprint, then he may win against pure sprinters.
KerisVroom14-03-2025