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Tour de France Tour de France 2022: Stage 1 (Copenhagen – Copenhagen, 13.2k/ITT)

The fun begins with a fairly short, completely flat time trial, confirming ASO’s return to the two-TT format after three editions with just the one individual effort from 2018 to 2020. In spite of its urban nature – this being the Danish capital and all that – the route isn’t overly technical.

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Stage description
One of the notable things about Copenhagen is the amount of parks surrounding the city centre, as the old remparts were mostly used for this purpose, and it is next to one of these parks that the start ramp is located. The way out north to the timecheck takes the riders past the national football stadium at Parken. The trickiest bit comes in the second half of the course, as the road narrows for the sinuous passage between the Kastellet (the Citadel) and the Little Mermaid statue. The final section of the course heads through the heart of the city, past the royal seat of Amalienborg and the governmental seat of Christiansborg, to the finish, sat between city hall and the famous amusement park Tivoli.

Final kilometres
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Cykelslangen (“Cycling snake”), the showpiece of Copenhagen’s cycling infrastructure
 
The opening weekend is really poison for the pure climbers.

They are guaranteed to lose a 1 minute or more in the time trial. And maybe a couple of minutes more in the following stage with the bridge. Put the cobbled stage into the equation and they are reduced to stage hunters.
Anyone who loses over a minute in 13k of TT has no business in the GC battle anyway.
 
The opening weekend is really poison for the pure climbers.

They are guaranteed to lose a 1 minute or more in the time trial. And maybe a couple of minutes more in the following stage with the bridge. Put the cobbled stage into the equation and they are reduced to stage hunters.

When cobble stages are dry there is usually no time gaps between anyone significant and pure climbers can easily stay in the front echelon with good positioning.
 
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Can't believe the Tour is here already. For this stage I'll pick Ganna but I hope Roglic puts some early seconds into the Pog.

Well, based on their performances in completely flat TTs in the last couple of years, Pogačar should actually be a second or two quicker than Roglič on a stage like this. Roglič really comes into his own when the TT has a lot of rythm changes, some steep ramps, downhills, long drags, corners to accelerate out. This pancake flat stuff is better for Pogi.
 
Well, based on their performances in completely flat TTs in the last couple of years, Pogačar should actually be a second or two quicker than Roglič on a stage like this. Roglič really comes into his own when the TT has a lot of rythm changes, some steep ramps, downhills, long drags, corners to accelerate out. This pancake flat stuff is better for Pogi.
Opening day ITT's are Roglic's bread and butter. The last opening day ITT (not prologue) that he failed to win was the Dusseldorf stage in the 2017 Tour. Of the GC contenders, I think he will be the best here.
 
So the Tour is almost underway! Hopefully Alien vs Predator actually happens this year after a long period of avoiding each other. The flat course favours power guys but there are plenty of corners, when lighter guys should fare well. Ganna followed by Van Aert look to be the favourites. I expect Pogacar and Roglic to be in top5-top6 and putting substantial time over most of other GC guys (except Vinge and Thomas). I don't expect more than 10 seconds between the Slovenians. Not sure who will fare better. Pogacar did a couple of power courses this year and did them well but Roglic is very strong on any TT course. Maybe Pog will gain a bit of time here, maybe it's the other way around.
 
Opening day ITT's are Roglic's bread and butter. The last opening day ITT (not prologue) that he failed to win was the Dusseldorf stage in the 2017 Tour. Of the GC contenders, I think he will be the best here.

True, but he rarely rides flat ones like this. The ones he won always had at least some sort of a hill in there. And avg. speed below 50km/h. This one will be around 54-55km/h if the rain stays away. Roglič's quickest career TT was Giro 2016 opening TT (53,2 km/h). I am expecting him to be somewhere from 5th to 8th realistically.
 
Decisions to make for Ineos and Jumbo as with multiple protected GC riders and stage favourites to cater for where they shuffle the deck in the startlist given changeable weather could make them look super smart or foolish very quickly.

Interesting proposition. Let's say we can clearly rate starting positions according to the weaether. How would they set their leaders in that case? In Jumbos case I would assume Rog gets the best spot, then Wout, then Jonas. With Ineos Ganna probably gets the best spot, then Thomas, then Martinez.
 
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Interesting proposition. Let's say we can clearly rate starting positions according to the weaether. How would they set their leaders in that case? In Jumbos case I would assume Rog gets the best spot, then Wout, then Jonas. With Ineos Ganna probably gets the best spot, then Thomas, then Martinez.
Would think that is a fair reflection of the order in general but whether Vingegaard is posted higher than usual as the big Danish hope at home in the Grand Depart.
 
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