- Sep 20, 2017
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Stage 16: Gruissan - Nîmes, 188.6k
The final sprint opportunity… unless the wind plays ball.The route
For the first time since the morning of stage 2, the riders find themselves on the coast for both the rest day and the start of this stage. The town of Gruissan consists of an old part around the ruins of a castle on the brackish lakes that characterise this part of the Mediterranean, and a new part directly on the beach. Unusually for a French town, it has hosted the Vuelta (2017, ironically coming from Nîmes, won by Lampaert) but not yet the Tour.
The stage offers little in the way of climbing, but does present the second and final real opportunity for echelons. The Mediterranean coastal plains are of course more densely populated than the Berry, but the roads between the towns are more often than not exposed. This is especially true for the first and final thirds of this stage – the middle part is more hilly and more often sheltered by hills or trees. Said part starts just before the intermediate sprint in Les Matellettes, as the riders arc around Montpellier.
The sole KOM, Côte de Fambetou, is barely worth categorising (no profile). After it, the openness re-emerges as the route heads close to the classic echelon terrain of the Bellegarde stages in Étoile de Bessèges. The finish in Nîmes is where it was in 2019 and 2021. The more similar run-in is the 2019 one, with which it shares its final 2.4 kilometres.
Already settled in prehistoric times, Nîmes is mainly noted for the ruins from its Roman heyday. Of course, the Pont du Gard just down the road overshadows everything else in terms of fame, but both the amphitheatre and the temple to Augustus dubbed Maison Carrée are among the best-preserved Roman structures of their kind. The city declined relatively early, with Arles surpassing it in Late Antiquity, but the worst damage came in the 8th century. The height of Muslim expansion in Western Europe saw the Umayyad Caliphate destroy the Visigothic Kingdom (which had conquered Nîmes in the dying days of the Western Roman Empire) and hold this part of France for a generation. Halfway through this period, the Franks mostly destroyed the city, and by the time they had conquered it from the Umayyads, only a small town consisting of little more than the former amphitheatre was left. Only from the 16th century onwards did real prosperity return. A big part of this revival was centred around textiles – in fact, denim originated here (the modern word is a contraction of de Nîmes). That industry is now mostly gone, but between the tertiary sector and tourism, the city is doing quite well for itself.
What to expect?
A sprint is more likely than a big echelon day, but even a pessimist can live in hope for this stage.
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