- Feb 9, 2013
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For those itching to discuss tomorrow's ITT already, and as usual, merci DE for the writeups!
The sole normal time trial of the race. While 33 kilometres is a subpar distance given that context, it’s still probably the most important GC day in the first week.
Map and profile
Start
A transfer west has brought the peloton to the city that, to the eternal confusion of everyone who isn’t French, is pronounced almost exactly like the one on the Mediterranean with the famous film festival. Although there was a small town here since at least the Roman era, Caen was a place of little significance prior to the Norman invasion. The town started to grow from the 10th century, but it was not until the aforementioned relocation of the Norman capital here in the late 11th century that it really became important. The castle built here by William the Conqueror’s heirs remains among the largest in France. This spurred further development and soon, Caen was the second-largest city in Normandie, after Rouen. And even after the French conquest of Normandie robbed it of its political importance in 1204, it would retain that spot for most of its subsequent history (although it eventually fell behind the port city of Le Havre).
Like most of Normandie, Caen suffered heavily during the Hundred Years’ War, with the English first brutally sacking it in 1346 and then occupying it from 1417 to 1450. The city was slow to recover from these blows, with the population in the first half of the 16th century being smaller than it had been in the 12th and 13th centuries. However, a new period of growth started the middle of this century, mainly off the back of its textile and leather production. Caen grew to 50000 inhabitants in the 18th century. During the French Revolution, after the radical Jacobins had split into the extremist Montagnards and the more moderate Girondins, Caen became a base of the latter, with a number of its more prominent members fleeing here after the Montagnards won the struggle for power and the Girondins became one of the targets of the Reign of Terror. Here, too, the Girondins would eventually be suppressed, but not before a local Girondin supporter, Charlotte Corday, travelled to Paris to assassinate the de facto Montagnard chief of propaganda Jean-Paul Marat. Tensions continued to simmer in the Napoleonic era, culminating in an abortive revolt in 1812.
The 19th century was difficult for Caen. The city was not really a part of the Industrial Revolution, stagnated both demographically and economically and was impoverished even by the standards of the time by the 1900s. Only with the development of the steelworks in the early 20th century did the city start to grow again. However, it was this century that would see the darkest page of Caen’s history. Of the places near the landing sites of D-Day, Caen was both the largest and most important, and thus became an early key objective of the Allied invasion. The resulting Battle of Caen involbed repeated bombings that killed between 3000 and 8000 civilians and destroyed two-thirds of the city, not to mention the 80000 total casualties among the soldiers. Despite these horrors and the massive reconstruction that was now required, Caen wound up being among the fastest-growing cities in France in the next few decades. Most of the industry, including the steelworks, wound up closing towards the end of the century, but the city has been reasonably successful in reorienting its economy. This will be the 34th time the Tour has visited here, but only the second time in the past 46 years (the other being a 2006 sprint stage won by Óscar Freire).
(picture by Benoit-caen at Wikimedia Commons)
The route
Very nondescript. It looks rolling on the profile, but when you look at the ‘climb’ at the very beginning (which is the one that looks the biggest) and you put in the elevations of the start and the Mémorial de Caen (commemorating the WWII battle), you realise that it’s 3.4k at 1.3% and that this is therefore legitimately a flat time trial. In fact, you have to go back more than a decade to find a flatter Tour ITT that wasn’t a short one on the opening stage. Combined with the fact that it’s really untechnical outside of the short city sections at the start and end, this is as good as the powerhouses could have asked for. Well, unless they are named Remco Evenepoel and wanted to maximise their GC gains, that is – less than 37 minutes for the winner is not a lot of time to inflict damage.
Final kilometres
The only section that requires a bit more care, when looking at the map keep in mind that a number of them are on that downhill false flat.
What to expect?
A seriously fast time trial. Given the importance of sheer watt output, it would be pretty scary if Pogacar and/or Vingegaard can podium it, but both will expect to be within a minute of Evenepoel.
The sole normal time trial of the race. While 33 kilometres is a subpar distance given that context, it’s still probably the most important GC day in the first week.
Map and profile
Start
A transfer west has brought the peloton to the city that, to the eternal confusion of everyone who isn’t French, is pronounced almost exactly like the one on the Mediterranean with the famous film festival. Although there was a small town here since at least the Roman era, Caen was a place of little significance prior to the Norman invasion. The town started to grow from the 10th century, but it was not until the aforementioned relocation of the Norman capital here in the late 11th century that it really became important. The castle built here by William the Conqueror’s heirs remains among the largest in France. This spurred further development and soon, Caen was the second-largest city in Normandie, after Rouen. And even after the French conquest of Normandie robbed it of its political importance in 1204, it would retain that spot for most of its subsequent history (although it eventually fell behind the port city of Le Havre).
Like most of Normandie, Caen suffered heavily during the Hundred Years’ War, with the English first brutally sacking it in 1346 and then occupying it from 1417 to 1450. The city was slow to recover from these blows, with the population in the first half of the 16th century being smaller than it had been in the 12th and 13th centuries. However, a new period of growth started the middle of this century, mainly off the back of its textile and leather production. Caen grew to 50000 inhabitants in the 18th century. During the French Revolution, after the radical Jacobins had split into the extremist Montagnards and the more moderate Girondins, Caen became a base of the latter, with a number of its more prominent members fleeing here after the Montagnards won the struggle for power and the Girondins became one of the targets of the Reign of Terror. Here, too, the Girondins would eventually be suppressed, but not before a local Girondin supporter, Charlotte Corday, travelled to Paris to assassinate the de facto Montagnard chief of propaganda Jean-Paul Marat. Tensions continued to simmer in the Napoleonic era, culminating in an abortive revolt in 1812.
The 19th century was difficult for Caen. The city was not really a part of the Industrial Revolution, stagnated both demographically and economically and was impoverished even by the standards of the time by the 1900s. Only with the development of the steelworks in the early 20th century did the city start to grow again. However, it was this century that would see the darkest page of Caen’s history. Of the places near the landing sites of D-Day, Caen was both the largest and most important, and thus became an early key objective of the Allied invasion. The resulting Battle of Caen involbed repeated bombings that killed between 3000 and 8000 civilians and destroyed two-thirds of the city, not to mention the 80000 total casualties among the soldiers. Despite these horrors and the massive reconstruction that was now required, Caen wound up being among the fastest-growing cities in France in the next few decades. Most of the industry, including the steelworks, wound up closing towards the end of the century, but the city has been reasonably successful in reorienting its economy. This will be the 34th time the Tour has visited here, but only the second time in the past 46 years (the other being a 2006 sprint stage won by Óscar Freire).
(picture by Benoit-caen at Wikimedia Commons)
The route
Very nondescript. It looks rolling on the profile, but when you look at the ‘climb’ at the very beginning (which is the one that looks the biggest) and you put in the elevations of the start and the Mémorial de Caen (commemorating the WWII battle), you realise that it’s 3.4k at 1.3% and that this is therefore legitimately a flat time trial. In fact, you have to go back more than a decade to find a flatter Tour ITT that wasn’t a short one on the opening stage. Combined with the fact that it’s really untechnical outside of the short city sections at the start and end, this is as good as the powerhouses could have asked for. Well, unless they are named Remco Evenepoel and wanted to maximise their GC gains, that is – less than 37 minutes for the winner is not a lot of time to inflict damage.
Final kilometres
The only section that requires a bit more care, when looking at the map keep in mind that a number of them are on that downhill false flat.
What to expect?
A seriously fast time trial. Given the importance of sheer watt output, it would be pretty scary if Pogacar and/or Vingegaard can podium it, but both will expect to be within a minute of Evenepoel.
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