- Feb 9, 2013
- 6,831
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As per usual many thanks to Devil's Elbow for the excellent stage-by-stage analysis!
The first Monday of the race marks the second sprint opportunity. The sprinters should enjoy it while it lasts, because their options will become very sparse very soon.
Map and profile
Start
A weirdly long transfer has brought the riders back into coal country, to the capital of its eastern portion: Valenciennes. Although it was not granted city rights until the 11th century, a town had developed here in the first half of the Middle Ages. Valenciennes was part of the County of Hainaut, which followed a similar history to Flanders. Both counties were often held in personal union before falling to first Burgundy and then the Habsburgs. In the 16th century, Valenciennes was one of the main centres of Protestantism in the Southern Netherlands, however most of the region remained staunchly Catholic and sided with the Spanish rather than the rebelling protestant Northern Netherlands in the Eighty Years’ War I mentioned earlier. The Protestants in Valenciennes, who had already been the first in the Netherlands to be persecuted in 1562 (prior to the outbreak of the war), were brutally and completely suppressed in stages between 1567 and 1580.
The County of Hainaut was split in two one Spanish-lost war later than Flanders, in 1678. The southern half, including Valenciennes, became a part of France. In 1734, the coal deposits in its northern suburbs were the first in the coal belt to be discovered and thus Valenciennes became the first centre of coal mining. For over two centuries, the regional economy was mostly dependent on both the mines and the factories that needed easy access to fuel. The 20th century was a period of repeated blows: it was occupied by the Germans during both World Wars, with the city centre being destroyed by fire during the latter, and then the closure of the mines from the 1970s onwards, which naturally caused a steep economic decline. The city has somewhat recovered in recent decades, with the economy having pivoted to the car and rail industries as well as its university, founded in 1979. The Tour has not been here since 1991, when Jelle Nijdam won a crash-riddled stage with a trademark late attack.
Signs of the war: the façade of the town hall survived the fire, the rest did not. (picture by R59 at Wikimedia Commons)
The route
Just like the previous day, the route links the coal belt with the coast. The first part of this stage passes through a number of towns and villages that should ring a bell – Orchies, Pont-à-Marcq, Mons-en-Pévèle – but there will be no cobbles today. And for those who paid really close attention to the first stage, there will be more familiar towns on the route, as we cross that of stage 1 on multiple occasions on this stage. And so Séclin and Béthune will welcome the Tour for the second time in three days. Finally, we make it to the intermediate sprint in Isbergues, home to the Grand Prix d’Isbergues which has run without interruption since 1945.
We then head back into the Westhoek for the weirdest of the repeat locations: just like on stage 1, there is a KOM at Mont Cassel. The only difference is that this time, they climb a different side (although the final 700 metres are the same). It’s still not one of the hard ones.
From there, it’s pretty much a straight shot to Dunkerque. Although I’m not necessarily expecting echelons I would like to point out that we are only 15 kilometres from De Moeren, the road is running exactly parallel and the terrain, while not quite as favourable as its Belgian neighbour, is often exposed.
Finish
Now the final circuit of the Quatre Jours de Dunkerque is not exactly suitable for a Tour sprint and they definitely needed to find an alternative, but I am less than impressed with the one they’ve gone with. There is absolutely nothing to stretch out the peloton until 1.5 kilometres to go, all the curves after that are pretty sweeping, and most importantly, the final straight is not even remotely straight (the riders will first see the finish when they’re about 100 metres from it). This will be a messy sprint.
Dunkerque (or Dunkirk in English) is the northernmost city in France, and is the capital of the Blootland (literally “naked land”). This name is derived from the fact that this area was tidal until well into the Middle Ages. Only with the natural development of the North Sea dunes and a series of land reclamation projects instigated by Flanders, both from the 10th and 11th century onwards, did the Blootland become suitable for permanent habitation. As you can tell from the name, this region was immediately incorporated into the Flemish-speaking part of the County of Flanders. Dunkerque itself was founded in the late 10th century, initially as a fishing village but developing into an important port for the trade with England once the surrounding land no longer flooded. The period of French dominance in Flanders in the 14th century was harmful to the town, as France was usually at war with England at this time (especially once the Hundred Years’ War broke out) and this often led to trade with England being prohibited.
In the 16th century, Dunkerque became notorious as a corsair base, aided and abetted by the Spanish Habsburgs who (especially after the famous sinking after the Armada in 1588) could not compete with the rebellious Dutch at sea and thus elected instead to attempt to disrupt their merchants and fishermen. English vessels also became targets from the early 17th century onwards. Between 1646 and 1652 and then permanently from 1662, Dunkerque came under French control. This initially caused a lull in privateering activities, until outbreak of the Franco-Dutch War in 1672 caused France to follow Spain’s lead and relaunch corsair operations. Only in 1713, when the French Bourbons made a number of concessions to the other European powers in exchange for being allowed to place their brethren on the Spanish throne (the Spanish Habsburgs had gone extinct in 1700, causing the lengthy War of the Spanish Succession), did the privateer era come to an end.
Dunkerque was thereafter a secondary port for quite some time, until it was rapidly developed from the 19th century onwards. It was also in this period that the Flemish language was supplanted. By the start of the 20th century, it had become the third-largest port in France, a position it continues to occupy in the present day. This caused it to be of great strategic importance in both World Wars. In the First World War, the failure of the Germans to flank the Entente forces in the ill-named Race to the Sea meant that they did not gain a foothold on the English Channel, leaving Dunkerque available to be used as the principal British access point to the front lines. More famously, in the Second World War, Dunkerque was the port from which the Allies managed to evacuate over 300000 troops who had become trapped in western Belgium and the far north of France following the complete collapse of the defensive lines. The Battle of Dunkirk, the Allied effort to hold the port for long enough to (mostly) complete the evacuation, saw the vast majority of the city destroyed. Unlike the rest of France, Dunkerque would not be liberated until the very end of the war, as the Germans refused to surrender the now heavily-fortified city and the Allies were not interested in the large troop expenditure required to seize it once they had regained control of the rest of the region.
In spite of the destruction, postwar redevelopment quickly saw Dunkerque rise above what it had been before the war, courtesy of a large expansion of the port coupled with the development of steelworks. Since then, its situation has been fairly stable, certainly compared to our previous stage hosts. It has a long cycling history, with the never-actually-Quatre Jours de Dunkerque dating back to 1955. The Tour mainly visited in the early years, when it still attempted to be a circuit of the country in the most literal sense, although it did host the Grand Départ in 2001. Since then, there has been nothing but two stage starts, most recently in 2022 for the Wout van Aert-won stage into Calais.
(picture by Marc Ryckaert at Wikimedia Commons)
What to expect?
As mentioned, echelons are possible, but a regular bunch sprint is far more likely.
The first Monday of the race marks the second sprint opportunity. The sprinters should enjoy it while it lasts, because their options will become very sparse very soon.
Map and profile
Start
A weirdly long transfer has brought the riders back into coal country, to the capital of its eastern portion: Valenciennes. Although it was not granted city rights until the 11th century, a town had developed here in the first half of the Middle Ages. Valenciennes was part of the County of Hainaut, which followed a similar history to Flanders. Both counties were often held in personal union before falling to first Burgundy and then the Habsburgs. In the 16th century, Valenciennes was one of the main centres of Protestantism in the Southern Netherlands, however most of the region remained staunchly Catholic and sided with the Spanish rather than the rebelling protestant Northern Netherlands in the Eighty Years’ War I mentioned earlier. The Protestants in Valenciennes, who had already been the first in the Netherlands to be persecuted in 1562 (prior to the outbreak of the war), were brutally and completely suppressed in stages between 1567 and 1580.
The County of Hainaut was split in two one Spanish-lost war later than Flanders, in 1678. The southern half, including Valenciennes, became a part of France. In 1734, the coal deposits in its northern suburbs were the first in the coal belt to be discovered and thus Valenciennes became the first centre of coal mining. For over two centuries, the regional economy was mostly dependent on both the mines and the factories that needed easy access to fuel. The 20th century was a period of repeated blows: it was occupied by the Germans during both World Wars, with the city centre being destroyed by fire during the latter, and then the closure of the mines from the 1970s onwards, which naturally caused a steep economic decline. The city has somewhat recovered in recent decades, with the economy having pivoted to the car and rail industries as well as its university, founded in 1979. The Tour has not been here since 1991, when Jelle Nijdam won a crash-riddled stage with a trademark late attack.
Signs of the war: the façade of the town hall survived the fire, the rest did not. (picture by R59 at Wikimedia Commons)
The route
Just like the previous day, the route links the coal belt with the coast. The first part of this stage passes through a number of towns and villages that should ring a bell – Orchies, Pont-à-Marcq, Mons-en-Pévèle – but there will be no cobbles today. And for those who paid really close attention to the first stage, there will be more familiar towns on the route, as we cross that of stage 1 on multiple occasions on this stage. And so Séclin and Béthune will welcome the Tour for the second time in three days. Finally, we make it to the intermediate sprint in Isbergues, home to the Grand Prix d’Isbergues which has run without interruption since 1945.
We then head back into the Westhoek for the weirdest of the repeat locations: just like on stage 1, there is a KOM at Mont Cassel. The only difference is that this time, they climb a different side (although the final 700 metres are the same). It’s still not one of the hard ones.
From there, it’s pretty much a straight shot to Dunkerque. Although I’m not necessarily expecting echelons I would like to point out that we are only 15 kilometres from De Moeren, the road is running exactly parallel and the terrain, while not quite as favourable as its Belgian neighbour, is often exposed.
Finish
Now the final circuit of the Quatre Jours de Dunkerque is not exactly suitable for a Tour sprint and they definitely needed to find an alternative, but I am less than impressed with the one they’ve gone with. There is absolutely nothing to stretch out the peloton until 1.5 kilometres to go, all the curves after that are pretty sweeping, and most importantly, the final straight is not even remotely straight (the riders will first see the finish when they’re about 100 metres from it). This will be a messy sprint.
Dunkerque (or Dunkirk in English) is the northernmost city in France, and is the capital of the Blootland (literally “naked land”). This name is derived from the fact that this area was tidal until well into the Middle Ages. Only with the natural development of the North Sea dunes and a series of land reclamation projects instigated by Flanders, both from the 10th and 11th century onwards, did the Blootland become suitable for permanent habitation. As you can tell from the name, this region was immediately incorporated into the Flemish-speaking part of the County of Flanders. Dunkerque itself was founded in the late 10th century, initially as a fishing village but developing into an important port for the trade with England once the surrounding land no longer flooded. The period of French dominance in Flanders in the 14th century was harmful to the town, as France was usually at war with England at this time (especially once the Hundred Years’ War broke out) and this often led to trade with England being prohibited.
In the 16th century, Dunkerque became notorious as a corsair base, aided and abetted by the Spanish Habsburgs who (especially after the famous sinking after the Armada in 1588) could not compete with the rebellious Dutch at sea and thus elected instead to attempt to disrupt their merchants and fishermen. English vessels also became targets from the early 17th century onwards. Between 1646 and 1652 and then permanently from 1662, Dunkerque came under French control. This initially caused a lull in privateering activities, until outbreak of the Franco-Dutch War in 1672 caused France to follow Spain’s lead and relaunch corsair operations. Only in 1713, when the French Bourbons made a number of concessions to the other European powers in exchange for being allowed to place their brethren on the Spanish throne (the Spanish Habsburgs had gone extinct in 1700, causing the lengthy War of the Spanish Succession), did the privateer era come to an end.
Dunkerque was thereafter a secondary port for quite some time, until it was rapidly developed from the 19th century onwards. It was also in this period that the Flemish language was supplanted. By the start of the 20th century, it had become the third-largest port in France, a position it continues to occupy in the present day. This caused it to be of great strategic importance in both World Wars. In the First World War, the failure of the Germans to flank the Entente forces in the ill-named Race to the Sea meant that they did not gain a foothold on the English Channel, leaving Dunkerque available to be used as the principal British access point to the front lines. More famously, in the Second World War, Dunkerque was the port from which the Allies managed to evacuate over 300000 troops who had become trapped in western Belgium and the far north of France following the complete collapse of the defensive lines. The Battle of Dunkirk, the Allied effort to hold the port for long enough to (mostly) complete the evacuation, saw the vast majority of the city destroyed. Unlike the rest of France, Dunkerque would not be liberated until the very end of the war, as the Germans refused to surrender the now heavily-fortified city and the Allies were not interested in the large troop expenditure required to seize it once they had regained control of the rest of the region.
In spite of the destruction, postwar redevelopment quickly saw Dunkerque rise above what it had been before the war, courtesy of a large expansion of the port coupled with the development of steelworks. Since then, its situation has been fairly stable, certainly compared to our previous stage hosts. It has a long cycling history, with the never-actually-Quatre Jours de Dunkerque dating back to 1955. The Tour mainly visited in the early years, when it still attempted to be a circuit of the country in the most literal sense, although it did host the Grand Départ in 2001. Since then, there has been nothing but two stage starts, most recently in 2022 for the Wout van Aert-won stage into Calais.
(picture by Marc Ryckaert at Wikimedia Commons)
What to expect?
As mentioned, echelons are possible, but a regular bunch sprint is far more likely.
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