"You just go on for a long time through the cornfields" - Tom Dumoulin on Tour de France's one and only flat time-trial

Tom Dumoulin, a former time-trial World Champion and Grand Tour specialist, would've loved a day like this if he was still racing in the professional ranks. Although the battle for the overall classification has already opened up in this Tour de France, today is a day for the specialists to take control of the race and potentially take the yellow jersey before the mountains arrive.

The 33-kilometer challenge into Caen will provide enough space for the GC riders to hash it out and create quite a lot of space between each other. Stage crosswinds into Lille and the hilly stages into Boulogne-sur-Mer and Rouen have already created somewhat of an order, but today in Caen the big guns will more densely occupy the first places of the overall classification.

Within this day we will have several plot points such as the tight battle between Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard; Who will hold the yellow jersey at the end of the day (with Mathieu van der Poel and Remco Evenepoel also as contenders); And of course if Evenepoel can actually close the gap to his two main rivals in this well-suited effort against clock.

“It’s actually quite easy. You ride a bit out of the city. There are some twists and turns, but it’s all uphill, so it’s not really technical," Dumoulin said in words for NOS. "After that, you just go on for a long time through the cornfields…” All-in-all it will be a time-trial for the pure specialists, with no climbs or technical features to balance it out for those who can climb.