Start the battle in the Alps! Egan, in the fight for the title

[Akrapovic]

The Tour de France will face from this Thursday the three final mountain days.

The moment of truth has arrived on the Tour de France. The Alpine crossing will show for three days what the true three-week runners are. Those who have savings on their legs and strength in their muscles will be the ones who can truly face the fight for the title. After a fierce and surprising leader who resisted in the Pyrenees, the Frenchman Julian Alaphilippe, five rivals dispute the podium, including the defending champion, the Welshman Geraint Thomas, and a Colombian, the young wonder Egan Bernal, waiting to see if he will work as gregarious or will assume as bonnet. Start the final battle!

This Thursday, the Tour enters fully into the Alps with a hard stage of 208 kilometers, including three ascents of ports above 2,000 meters, with the goal located on the descent of Galibier. It will be the first of the three days in that massif that will serve to leave the general classification ready, and where the suitors to the Paris podium will show their last letters.

Egan is ready for this battle, which since Thursday promises to shake the differences. It's less than 30 seconds off the podium, with the chances of moving the race and going for the coveted yellow shirt, but it all depends on how your leader feels, Thomas, to find out what your team manager's indication will be.

“When I talk to someone and they tell me that I have options to win the Tour, it excites me. I'm less than 30 seconds off the podium, but I'd rather not think about it; I try to be the best I can and enjoy it. We have two cards to play, ”commented Bernal.
The climbs to the Alps are ideal for Egan. Long and not so explosive. That's where he can exhibit the best of his talent, either to go for the crown or the podium.

“Finally the Alps arrive; I am excited, if there is an opportunity we will have to take it. I am fifth, and Geraint, second. We will see the state of form tomorrow and what we can do, ”he added.
Triptych

Today, five climbs between Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne and Tignes, with the mythical Iseran, the Tour's highest point with 2,770 meters. We will have to be careful to the last ascent; whoever loses the wheel will lose the race in the descent.

Surely, the French Thibaut Pinot, along with the Spanish Mikel Landa will try to move the race and put the leader Alaphilippe and his rivals to suffer. Dutchman Steven Kruijswijk and Germanman Emanuel Buchmann will surely try to keep up.

This Saturday's plate includes five climbs between Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne and Tignes, with the mythical Iseran, the highest point of the Tour with 2,770 meters. It will be an ideal climb for Pinot and Egan.

Finally, on Saturday there will be three ascents, with a final endless (33.4 km) that will guide the last aspirants to the final victory at the top of Val Thorens and decide the name of the winner of the event. “It's a horrible climb; I think that the general classification that will be before this stage will not mean much, ”said Kruijswijk, third today.

Brokers know what they have ahead. Alaphilippe has insisted that "the hardest is yet to come" and that, despite his minute and a half of advantage with Thomas, his yellow shirt "hangs on a thread." Thomas, meanwhile, confirms it. "You win a great turn managing the effort," said the 33-year-old Welshman.

The final three days of a Tour de France are coming that is quite open and whose crown is the desire of six cyclists who are in the fight to win the most important race in the world.

Egan is clear: “We will see how we have our legs after 18 days butt. Some teams will impose a strong rhythm and skip some of the general's favorites. ”

He will fulfill what his team tells him, but the power and dynamite to explode the legs of his rivals are intact.